Serendipity vs. Fate

Serendipity:
1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
2. good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job she applied for.

Fate:
1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2. the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed;
the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
3. that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
4. a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.
5. death, destruction, or ruin.

*****
 
The year is 1983. I was with my first partner.
 
She had a tattoo and I wanted one, too. So we went to the local tattoo shop.
I got my tattoo. My very first one.
As we were leaving, there was a girl and an older woman standing there, waiting.
The girl was about 17. All I could do was stare at her.
She was thin, had a tiny little spaghetti-strap top on, long brown hair,--
And I saw the most piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life.
I'd remember her.
Forever.
 
The year is 2007. Twenty-four years have passed.
 
I started writing to a smart, interesting, intelligent woman I'd met online.
We decided to meet. She walked through the door of a local bar we'd chosen,--
And I saw the most piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life.
I wanted to look into them
Forever.
 
I used to think it was serendipity that we met again; that it was something good.
But instead, it was fate.
And fate isn't always a good thing.
 
The year is 2010. Three years have passed.
 
She stayed with me for those three years and kept me hanging on for another year and a half after that.--
And I saw the most piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life.
walk out the door.
Forever.
 
The year is 2012. Two more years have passed.
 
She never returned to me, although she promised she would.
She is with someone else. Anyone else.
As long as it isn't me, I suppose.--
And I saw the most piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life,
every time I closed mine.
Forever.