On Soulmates

I do my best writing early in the morning, before the confines and constraints of the day have time to catch up with me and overload my head with senseless meanderings.  Problem is while I'm sitting here keystroking to my hearts content by the dawns early light, I often find myself arguing with that nagging little voice that says, "There's work to be done and here you are at the computer."  That's about the time I put a sock in it. 

Maybe that's why I have so many mateless socks sitting in my laundry room.

Writing this early in the morning has its ups and downs.  If I post an entry between 6 or 7 am you can bet your sweet bippy I was up way before the dawn.  Like this morning, I woke up at four o' clock and could not go back to sleep.  I tried, but half an hour later I knew I couldn't fight it any longer.  My mind no longer wanted to rest.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Most of it related to boring work stuff, but some of it has to do with me stuff.  And the topic of soulmates.  A year ago, during an IM session with Robin, she asked me if I was with my soulmate.  It was the topic of soulmates that led me to Robin and her journal.  I wasn't sure how to answer that question, because I wasn't sure if I was.  So I told her no, I was not.  For years I have had this notion about soulmates...and I clung to an old worn out romantic ideal.  I was caught between what my heart told me and what my head was saying, and both messages were totally different.  Neither reconciled with the other.  But within it all I found the same underlying words:  If it is meant to be, it will happen.

Just before I met Sam I tried to hook up with the man I thought to be my soulmate, whom I had lost touch with years before.  At that time I was convinced this man from my past was my true soulmate.  As a teenager I did extensive reading and research on soulmates and so I thought I had all the answers.  Such is the folly of youth.  The answer was right in front of me the night I met Sam.  The signs were all there as well, and while I didn't really miss seeing them per se, I didn't connect the signs back to the source.

Sam and I hit it off from the start and found much common ground between us.  He asked me out and as time passed we eased ourselves into the relationship.  Together we mended the other's broken heart.  Within the first year I began to wonder if Sam was really my soulmate...my one true mate.  He is my soulmate, of that I am certain; but there are many kinds of soulmates that come into our lives.  My sister Chris is a soulmate of mine.  From the moment I first laid eyes on her, the day she came home from the hospital, I felt a connection to her.  A connection that transcended family ties.  This went deeper.  As Chris and I grew that connection grew into a profound bond.  We knew things about each other and we felt things about each other, even when thousands of miles separated us.  I have friends who are soulmates; those people with  whom I immediately connected with on some level.  Soulmates are friends, family, co-workers, everyday people.  They are people who enter our lives for a reason, whether we know it or not; sometimes for the simple reason of just being there.

But back to Sam.  Yes, I felt that connection with him, and with him I grew as an individual.  He freed me from the confines of my past, he brought love and stability into my life, which had been missing for so long.  And yet, a part of me felt he wasn't my one true mate, because I believed Sam's first wife was his one true mate.  I was convinced that those two were the true soulmates.  The whys are many.  They met when they were young, he was devoted to her and his family, and they had a wonderful life together, bringing into this world two daughters.  And, since I had already met my one true mate years before, and Sam had already met his, then we...he and I...could not possibly be true soulmates.  We only get one true mate.  If Sam and I really are true soulmates, then why didn't we meet sooner?  We grew up just miles from each other.  If we were meant to be together, then why didn't our paths cross when we were young?  That's what I believed, for years.  This year everything changed.

Actually, the past twelve months changed everything.  I had a major paradigm shift like no other before in my life.  It's complicated, as such things usually are, but this summer, in late July, everything became crystal clear to me.  Through much soul searching, thinking, and writing I reconciled my heart to my head and both agree.  Sam and I are together.  He is the one.  Somehow in this crazy mixed-up world which rarely makes sense, something went right and our paths crossed.  We are among the lucky, the fortunate ones, who find each other.

So, Robin, if you are reading this now, ask me that question again.

 

And about those mateless socks in the laundry room...I keep them around, just in case.  In case the mate shows up one day, unexpectedly, the way Sam came into my life.  I can't bring myself to throw away one sock when I know the mate for that sock is out there...somewhere.  :)