Have you ever received an unexpected message?

No, not one that brings you good news like a promotion or information that you expected.

I am talking about something that lived right beyond the limits of your vision, a kind of divine justice that suddenly brings you to another level of understanding because after reflecting on what has just happened to you, you really are no longer the same person.

This has happened to me a few times. I will convey, however, about one moment in particular, a moment that brought me out of the low self-esteem I had, especially regarding the world of relationships.

This article is for all those who have never been able to get retribution on a past love disappointment. Often, we will never know if certain situations could have been different, other times, and it happens rarely, we do know, so in this case better to talk about it.

Years ago, I was in a intense romantic relationship, one of those that teaches you everything about life, one of those that is difficult to repeat, due to time, age, circumstances, and the opportunities it brings. A unique relationship. For us it was. It taught us so much that, although more than ten years have passed since its inevitable conclusion, it is still a benchmark (and shouldn’t be, one should always be open to the new and the potential).

Get it?

New and potential.

However.

In the last breaths of our relationship, I was living in Ancona, in Le Marche region. She lived in Milan. A bit like London and Newcastle, or New York City and Pittsburgh.

At the time I was working as a chef in a macrobiotic restaurant that served between 120 and 150 people for lunch and something like that in the evening. There I met a girl, whom I will call Leia (yes, like the princess from Star Wars). Leia worked part time, washed dishes, and served tables some evenings. She was at university.

A dreamer like me.

We liked each other right away.

She was affianced and so was I.

I would like to emphasise that I loved my girlfriend madly.

Leia, on the other hand, was in an eight-year relationship. She loved her boyfriend profoundly, whom she saw almost as a deity. However, they were having relationship issues. Their bond had cooled down by then, often arguing, their reactions to these quarrels were sometimes exaggerated, with crying, drug, and alcohol abuse. He had slipped into the alternative, which for us at the time meant spirituality, such as connecting with angels (channeling) and the esoteric arts. I knew that world too, I had read many books about it and personally known those who practised these alternative disciplines.

I owned a picture of Jesus, which had been given to me by a disciple of Sai Baba at the end of a series of courses on Reiki. The photo had been taken by a photographer who had asked Sai Baba to reveal the face of Jesus to her. Sai Baba told her to take a photo. And when she developed that photo (no digital in the 80s), instead of the Indian holy man’s face, the photo showed a dark-skinned man with long, thick hair. A handsome face. I kept that photo jealously, because I perceived it as a unique gift, I was one of the few who possessed and knew the true face of the great prophet. And really, I did not care if it was a true story or just one to impress.

I’ll get to the point.

Leia and I became friends, we often went out together, sometimes her boyfriend was there too. A strong union was created, so much so that to show my friendship towards them, I gave him that photo. I gave it to him because I felt he needed it more. Their house was a kind of shrine with pictures of angels and religious symbols, and I thought that was the most suitable place for the true face of Jesus.

Leia was not really into those things.

She and I used to end up some evenings outdoors on the beach in Ancona. Loud music. Smoke. Drugs. Alcohol. I did not drink or smoke, because it was forbidden for the purposes of the macrobiotic diet I was strictly following. I had also lost a lot of weight.

And clearly, after a while I began to feel some interest in her.

I still loved my girlfriend, although we lived far apart, but I felt an irresistible attraction for Leia.

She seemed so free and cheerful.

Frequently, she would sleep at my place, and we would end up on the sofa, I would take one side and she the other, as it was L-shaped.

My colleagues slept in other rooms, and some evenings we would spend all night together talking about the future, about how to save the world. 

But when she and I were alone, we would talk for hours about things that I really don’t remember today.

And… laughed a lot.

We seemed like a real couple.

But Leia, sentimentally speaking, was only devoted to her boyfriend. I have seen guys much better looking than her boyfriend trying unsuccessfully with her, acquaintances and strangers included.

I knew I had no chance.

At that time, however, my relationship was cracking.

At the end of that summer, my fiancée broke up with me, because the distance was unbearable and because she was on the verge of a personal crisis.

I was devastated.

We did not speak for a week, then I made a called inviting her to come down to Ancona.

I managed to mend the relationship. She stayed with me for ten days, and sometimes we ended up on one of those evenings by the sea together with Leia.

We made love every night and it was satisfying.

I thought I had saved us, but that was not the case.

She went back to Milan.

I spent one last evening with Leia, before they moved me away to work with those who mattered in the Company. A sort of advancement.  

And that evening was unforgettable.

Leia, another colleague and I.

I remember Leia was distraught because things with her boyfriend were not working out. She stepped into the sea, and I followed her. Leia was smoking a joint. I went into the water with her, dressed. The water up to our knees.

I wanted to kiss her.

Unfortunately, she understood my intentions and pulled away in time to avoid an embarrassing moment.

Other things happened that evening. Really strong things. Such force had been created between us that even today, many years later, we have never stopped thinking about it.

Things, however, changed.

After the move, she and I never saw each other again.

More than ten years later, however, I received a message on LinkedIn. It was Leia. She told me that because she had changed her phone number and switched off the social channels she used, had lost my contact. So, I gave her my new English number and we spoke on WhatsApp. After an exchange of sentences, she sends me a voice message.

One of those messages that breaks your heart in so many ways it’s hard to explain how.

She had not been with her boyfriend for some time and had lost her path. After that summer together, she had been walking in the dark for years looking for a purpose in life, without finding it. Lately, she had found a job at a nice place, which gave her at least some motivation.

And, above all, for all those years she had kept thinking about me. In the message Leia confessed me that she was sorry for not giving us a chance. That she liked me, and that she had had to choose between me and saving her declining relationship. And she had chosen the decline over what was a potential future with me.

I had to be quite neutral with Leia after hearing her confession. I had been living in the UK for four and a half years now, I was about to open a business, too many things had changed, there was no way I could go back.

I wished her best luck.

What would you have done in my place?

That’s the way I am. I have learnt that the past is best left behind, not to go back.

A part of me will stay with Leia forever, because we have given each other so much that we cannot forget. Never ever.

She herself never forgot, so much so that she found the strength to confess.

For my part, I want to keep those memories as a priceless diamond that I will carry for the rest of my life.

That evening at the beach, in the calm water of the Adriatic Sea, while she smoked and sobbed, there was a darkness stretching behind her back, a vast infinity that was the very oblivion of her heart. I wanted to embrace her, but she wouldn’t let me. And our estrangement was inevitable.

Sometimes, we do our best, but if the other person is not ready to receive, they will see nothing but a veil in front of them, and that veil, like the darkness behind Leia that night, cannot let our light filter through despite all our efforts and courage.

It is said that love received turns into a kind of magic armour that will protect us for the rest of our lives. And so sometimes I think it is. Wherever you are Leia, whatever other despair you are experiencing, fear not, you have been loved and nothing really can destroy you now.