There’s just so many people in the world we are bound to meet. Whether we meet them while we’re waiting for the 7 o’clock Bart ride to Downtown San Francisco or at a local Starbucks while waiting for our daily Grande Caramel Frappuccino, maybe ten, maybe close to twenty, we’ll see new faces on a daily basis. There are the ones that we just say a simple, “Hello” to, ones we become long term friends with, ones we build an intimate relationship with and of course, ones that just get away. 

The ones that get away? Well yeah, those ones. Perhaps, we might already know this person who got away or this person is one we have yet to meet. And come to think of it, he or she just might be the best possible and most ideal individual that we envisioned to love and care about. You know, the one where everything is perfect, but nevertheless, the timing just might not have been well, perfect. Because somehow, somewhat, we realize that the hand we were dealt was the hand difficult, and worse, impossible to play with. So we just let them be - the person who got away. 

They say, “Life is all about timing”. The right time to hit the ball with a baseball bat, the right time to say the punch line on a funny joke or the right time to shoot a perfect subject for a portrait. In most cases, it’s true that life is relevant to a certain “perfect timing”. And you see, maybe finding the right love requires the right time as well. ‘Cause come on, let’s face it, we’re not in our teens anymore and there’s just no more time left to waste on the wrong ones. 

How often do we go through our daily lives without being aware of it? If we’re not ready, we just won’t be ready now or ten minutes later. And remember, we can’t just force ourselves into being in something we can’t devote our hundred and one percent to. The little arguments. The little disagreements. The things that eventually lead to the end of the road. The same road we’ve all been through one too many times. And it might not be us, and it might not be them, nor the million excuses for the pathetic lines like, “It’s not you, it’s me”. It might not be that. It’s might just be the time. 

Sometimes, we tend to think we’ve got everything all figured out - when it should happen, how it should happen and who it should happen with. And sometimes, we tend to wonder why we think about certain things that we could have waited for to do and things we should have done a long time ago. We sometimes wonder if it would be any different if waited to mature a little bit more or wished to do all the things we should have done when we were a little bit younger.

So when the day comes and we are slowly putting the pieces together, and we finally figured ourselves out, and we know and we are sure of what we exactly want and desire, and we are confident enough not to only devote one hundred and one, but one hundred and two percent of time and emotion to the “one”. The one and only one, the one who might just be the one, the one who we want to be the one and of course, the same “one” we won’t just let slip and get away. 

Life is all about perfect timing, they say. And there’s a perfect explanation why that person was standing on the platform at 6:55 in the morning, waiting for the same train. There’s a perfect explanation why that person is going on their caffeine run at the same exact Starbucks, the same exact city, and the same exact time we were. It’s all about timing. What if that person is actually “the one”?

I know we might often think that maybe we already missed that moment, or it’s too late, or we ran out of time - well, truth is, how do we know that? How do we know that we aren’t meant to be there at that exact place and time? We are always fearful that our ship is not going to come, or if it does, it already left us. But how do we know there’s not another one coming when the time is right? I guess, when that time comes, somehow, somewhat, things will just fall into places altogether. It won’t come a minute sooner, nor an hour later. Perfectly, it’ll just… come. Life is all about timing. Perfect timing. 

- Carmela David (September 2010)