“Love Lost or Love Never Had?” Inspired by "My Oxford Year"

Spoiler alert:

If you haven’t seen My Oxford Year yet...stop what you’re doing and go watch it.

Don’t finish this post.

Don’t scroll down.

Let yourself feel it first.

Then come back here when you’re crying on the couch. I’ll be waiting. 💔

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I watched My Oxford Year expecting something sweet.

A little charm, a little flirtation, a story wrapped in British accents and cobblestone streets.

I didn’t expect it to break me.

I didn’t expect to be sitting there at 2 a.m. blinking through tears, holding my chest like it could stop the ache.

I googled it.

Not out of curiosity ...but because I had to know if it was real.

Because losing someone you love to cancer… that kind of pain is unimaginable.

Watching Ella fall deeper for Jamie without knowing what was coming ... it didn’t feel like fiction.

It felt personal. Lived-in. Real.

I wondered if the author, Julia Whelan, had ever experienced that kind of love and loss.

But instead… I found out she hadn’t.

She studied at Oxford ... but the love story? The diagnosis? The heartbreak?

She imagined it all.

And that’s when I said it out loud to myself…

“So… she never fell in love? The love story wasn’t real either?”

And I sat with that.

I don’t know what’s more sad ...Love lost, or love never had.

And honestly?

Probably love never had.

Because heartbreak means something existed.

It lived, breathed, and touched you.

But love never had?

That’s a grief that lingers without form.

A sadness over something that never got the chance to grow.

And My Oxford Year pulled that ache forward.

It felt like a British version of A Walk to Remember ... quiet, romantic, devastating.

That slow-burn love that deepens just as the clock starts ticking… even though you don’t know the timer has already started.

I should’ve known.

The character who had cancer was named Jamie ... just like Jamie Sullivan, the unforgettable girl from A Walk to Remember, my favorite romance movie of all time.

And just like her, he was loved… and he was lost.

And just like Landon Carter…

Ella didn’t know.

She found out after she’d already fallen.

And she didn’t run.

She stayed.

She chose to love him through it ... just like Landon did for Jamie.

That’s what wrecked me most.

The idea that someone could find out they’re going to lose the person they love… and choose to love them harder anyway.

Two Jamies.

Two unforgettable loves.

Two lives that ended too soon.

Same heartbreak.

Same ache.

Different movies…

But the same story.

It left the same lump in my throat.

The same tear-stained pillow.

The same haunting beauty.

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And yet… even though it emotionally wrecked me ...

I don’t regret watching it.

Because it was so cute.

The story, the setting, the way they looked at each other… it pulled me in.

It made me feel something real ... and that’s the magic of a good story.

And after it ended, I found myself smiling through the tears.

I sat in my clean, quiet living room.

Kitties curled beside me.

Candles flickering on leftover red velvet birthday cake with buttercream cheese frosting.

I was home.

I was held by the softness of the moment.

And somehow, even though the movie was sad…

everything around me felt beautiful.

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I’ve been through different seasons.

I’ve lost love ...

The kind that felt young and deep and unforgettable.

A love I thought was perfect… until it wasn’t.

Both I hoped would return... and for a moment, it did…

But it never truly came back to life.

Love lost.

Love had.

Love that could have been.

But now…

I have my forever.

Not an almost.

Not a memory.

Not a dream I’m holding onto.

Adrian.

The one I chose ...and the one who stays.

The kind of love I pray I never lose.

The kind I want to grow old with ...gray with ...go home to Jesus with.

Not an ending.

A beginning I want to last a lifetime.

And that’s what we have:

The kind that stays.

For richer or poorer.

For better or worse.

In sickness and in health.

Kristen, Unfiltered Xo 💋

📖 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” -1 Corinthians 13:7