The Idea of “The One” — Do We Only Get One Chance?

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of The One. That single person who seems to fit us in a way no one else ever could — the one whose presence feels both new and familiar, as if we’ve met before. It’s a story we’ve all heard, maybe even lived: two people cross paths and something deep inside whispers, there you are.

The First One

My family had just finished moving to a different state. For my parents, it brought new careers, a new home, new social life — everything changed. For me, I landed in the last few months of my time in fourth grade. My first day in the new classroom I saw a girl that looked familiar. At the time, I didn't know her, yet in every part of my being, I did. She was somehow an old friend.

My thoughts raced. Did she move here as well? How did this amazing thing happen that we ended up getting re-connected? To many, my efforts appeared one of instant romance. All her friends buzzed over the development of their friend and the new boy. For me, I was picking up a friendship I had somehow lost. Definitely not a similar line of thinking. But, for that moment in time, something unusual was going on.

As I spent time with my "old" friend, I learned soon enough that she was not the same person. Perhaps it was the move that shifted things in my head to need a friend during a time of big changes. That makes sense. Still, it was during those days that I saw a shadow of what it might be like to find "Mr Right" or "Prince Charming" or that one person destined to be with me.

The Myth and the Mirror

Cultures around the world have told stories of soulmates — two halves of a single soul searching for each other across lifetimes. From Plato’s myth of divided souls to modern romantic comedies, the theme endures because it speaks to something we all recognize: the longing to be truly seen, to truly belong with another.

But the idea of The One can also feel heavy, even limiting. If there’s only one person for us, what happens if we never find them? Or if they find someone else first? Life is rarely that neat. Love, even at its purest, is messy — full of detours, missed chances, and unexpected returns.

Still, I’ve always been drawn to the possibility that some loves are meant to echo — that certain connections leave an imprint too deep for time to erase.

Maybe It Isn’t Just One

When people talk about “the one,” they often mean the person they can’t imagine living without. But I’ve come to think of it differently. There might be many “ones” — each arriving at a different time, meeting a need unique to the moment in life we are living, each shaping us in a way the last could not.

One might awaken us. Another might steady us. Another might be the muse that inspires us to new creations. And maybe, if death brings separation that feels like forever, perhaps that One can appear fresh and new in time to heal us, and move us forward.

Or Maybe It Is

Or perhaps, in the course of moving through life, someone — a special One, a person that triggers a memory from another time, walks into your world and changes everything.

Sometimes I wonder if those we’ve loved most leave traces in us — tiny memory markers that guide us when love comes around again. A scent. A song. A moment of déjà vu that makes no logical sense but feels like coming home. Maybe that’s how love remembers itself.

In my writing, I explore that possibility. The idea that love doesn’t end when a heartbeat does. That souls remember, even when minds forget. In The Prospect Tower Series, love crosses the boundaries of life and death — not as a fantasy, but as a reflection of something deeply human: our belief that love, once true, never fully disappears.

The Heart’s Endless Return

I don’t pretend to know how many chances we get at love. But I do believe in its persistence — in the quiet, unseen ways it finds us. Sometimes through the person standing right in front of us. Sometimes through the ache of someone we still miss. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, through a love that circles back, whispering, I found you again.

In A Boy From Before, there’s a moment when Flint stands in his new dorm room, waiting to meet his new roommate. He doesn’t know why, only that someone is supposed to walk through — someone who feels like The One. The irony is that Zack is already part of his life. Flint just doesn’t remember yet.

That’s what I love most about stories like theirs: love remembers even when we don’t. It waits at the edge of awareness, patient, certain, and kind — until the heart finally recognizes what it’s been waiting for.

Maybe that’s what The One really means — not a single chance, but a single truth: love never stops trying.

Do we only get one? I’m not sure. But I do know this: if the heart is patient enough, and open enough, love will always find its way home.

Mj