Carsen @greenroomgeek

Anybody else have a “one who got away?” Let me be clear, I love my husband and so thrilled that we ended up together and wouldn’t trade my husband and our marriage for anything. But the relationship I was in just prior to meeting my husband ended for reasons that had nothing to do with a lack of emotional compatibility and I think I will always think of him as “the one who got away.” I don’t really believe in soulmates. There are 8 billion people in the world, I gotta believe there are at least a few 100,000 I could live happily ever after with. And I, frankly, think it’s far more romantic to choose to be with a person than to have “fate” saddle you with them. But that does mean there is many a guy I could have lived happily ever after with and didn’t. And that means the “one who got a way” (potentially) is a real thing.

I have a degree in music. But at the end of my junior year, the sadistic, outgoing head of the music department tried to crush the spirits of all the music majors (I know it wasn't just me because music majors talk) and it worked. I decided to completely give up on my plan to be a music teacher and only finished that degree because I was so close that even if I switched to a different major, I'd have not saved any time in terms of what year I'd have graduated. So I finished that degree, then got a second BA in art (I guess I never wanted to make any money). Left college in a relationship (that lasted 12 years) that I now recognize to have been mentally abusive, where I was made to feel like I wasn't good enough to accomplish anything. Assumed I wasn't good enough to set foot on a stage again, so I didn't. Fast forward to 2015 when that relationship ended and I moved to a new city. A chance encouter gave me the opportunity to start doing improv and I almost turned it down, but thought "no, the whole point of what I'm doing right now is trying to get back out in the world, try new things and meet new people," so I went for it. Ended up doing improv with that organization for 5 years. Then the pandemic hit. As things started opening back up, I decided to start pursuing my real love in the performance world; musical theatre. Took my blank page of an acting resume (literally all I could say was I had a degree in music and had done improv) and auditioned for a community theatre production of Hairspray. At 41, I managed to get cast as a swing for two tracks that were literally supposed to be high schoolers. Since then I've been in 6 different shows including a few principle parts and even one lead. I just got hired to be a professional Christmas caroler this year and will be getting paid to sing for the first time since I was in college. It took more than two decades but 44 year old me is finally living the life that 18 year old me always assumed that I would. Occasionally, I still get a little sad about all the time I lost NOT doing what I wanted to with my life, but then I remember that I AM doing it now. Don't give up on your dreams, you can accomplish more than you think. And if you do find you've given up on something important to you, it's never too late to start back at it.

I’m old enough to be dead in gay years and very happily married so maybe I have some life experience that might be worth passing on based on the posts I read here. I see lots and lots of people lamenting the fact that they can’t find their soulmate. I empathize and I get it, but I want to let you all in on a little secret. You will never find your soulmate, because they do not exist, at least not yet. What you might find if you’re brave enough to look for it is a lot of interesting new people who are less than an ideal match when you meet them, but as you get to know these people, genuinely for who they are and what makes them interesting, not for how they might fit into your life, you might discover that one of them is especially interesting and you’ll start to shift a bit, and they’ll start to shift a bit, and eventually you might just BECOME each other’s soulmate. But you won’t start there. Dating isn’t marriage. Dating is about getting to know another person (more than likely, many other people). Go out with people you might not usually go out with. Don’t be picky. I’m not telling you to settle, but I’m telling you that everybody (even you) is a work in progress and if you pass on people who aren’t perfect for you today, you won’t be around when they become perfect for you tomorrow.