What If?

Recently, I had the privilege of seeing a 1998 thriller-action movie; Out Of Sight, and at a very specific scene, I was reminded of a thought I've had repeatedly for over two weeks.

In the scene, the lead character, Jack Foley, a charming bank robber who escaped from prison, played by George Clooney, is talking to the main supporting character, Karen Sisco, a U.S. Marshal who became incidentally entangled with Foley at the time of the escape.

Keep in mind, Foley and Karen's relationship develops into a romantic one and the scene being described here is a third meeting since the escape.

Foley says something in their third meeting:

“It's like seeing someone for the first time, like you could be passing the street and you look at each other and for a few seconds there's this kind of recognition like you both know something.”

“The next moment the person's gone and it's too late to do anything about it and you always remember it because it was there and you let it go and you think to yourself; what if I had stopped? If I had said something? What if?”

“It may only happen a few times in your life.”

Karen chimes in:

“Or once.”

What Foley describes here is their second meeting, which was very brief and he couldn't really say or do anything at the time. Their first meeting however wasn't brief as he happened to have abducted her and conversed with her in the trunk of a car while his friend drove them away from the prison he had escaped from.

The point is, Foley met a girl, in the most awkward yet beautiful way but had to unfortunately leave without turning that beautiful mistake(since she wasn't supposed to be there) into something lasting because he felt something, in that moment.

Coincidentally, I happened to have had a similar experience (no, I wasn't escaping from prison, would be cool though, but I'm not that lucky) a couple of weeks ago and the thought “what if” kept ringing in my head right after the first 2 minutes since she was gone.

For the past two weeks I've found myself occasionally thinking back to that moment, reliving how weird it felt yet the conversation was beautiful, and in all of that, I also had to re-experience my lack of action to take things any further from where we were at, seeing that she was a very beautiful energy and seemed pretty interested.

In my defense, I am in a place where I am not mentally open to the idea of committing to something new and I sort of enjoyed the idea of having beautiful moments like that with someone of the opposite gender without needing to make it anything more.

The urge to, however, I consider natural, but I feel, still, that it is very commendable to show restraint even when there's obviously something beautiful there.

If I had done anything, any different, I would probably be weeks into experiencing something new and positive every day. But I didn't, and it doesn't take away the beauty of that one moment that has now mattered so much that I'd think about it daily.

It's not a total loss in my books, it's just one of those things you go through in life that you get to occasionally reflect back on and be appreciative, acknowledging that it isn't always all bad. There's good, fun and beauty here and there.

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