An Altered Path

The affair ended badly, but I guess all affairs have to end that way. Otherwise they wouldn't end at all, they would just be a pause, a waiting to be reawakened after a chance meeting, an errant phone call or a melancholy rememberance.1

The affairs that create the most damage are the ones of the heart. The ones that reach down deep inside the emotions and create another, almost physical, entity within oneself.2

These are the ones that hurt with a pain, almost unbearable at times, as that life which was created begins to die.3

The question is how to move on. How to fill the void which was left, even if it should not have been filled to begin with.4

Could it be that the feelings belong to another time or of another parallel life which has not been lived?5

Possibly it is the encounter that would have happened if another path were chosen at another time. Could it have been as simple as a choice of school? A choice of career? Or is destiny more complicated than that?6

Maybe each of our paths have been laid out with all of the players in position waiting for our choices to be made and the path to follow to become more clear. 7

Possibly the affairs we have are with those people who intersect with our journeys. The ones who would have been ready for us at a different place or a different time were we to have chosen another route.8

It may be a glimpse into what we could have been. Stronger, better, faster, smarter, not held down by the baggage of our current lives. Allowed for a brief time to spread our wings and fly. Free from the daily routines and the shoulds, coulds and can'ts.9

A mirror to that parallel world with a guide that would have taken us should things have been different.10

Sorting through the pain and the loss, it may be that rather than erase the memory and the emotions, it could be embraced, cherised and seen as an opportuity for a look into another set of circumstances. A potential to develop what was lacking in this set of life's choices and determine what created the void that needed so badly to be filled.11

So, maybe the affair didn't end so badly after all. Rather, it is a new beginning down an altered path.12