Soulmates

Our society loves to play with the concept of “the one”—the “prince” or “princess” who is our soulmate, bound to us through all eternity. We see it over and over again in romantic comedies and romance stories. For some of us, it’s a knight on a white charger who will battle our demons and rescue us from our lives. For others, it’s a person with whom they have an intense, soul-deep connection. Still others fight against the concept and dismiss it out of hand. 

Whatever our opinion of the soulmate concept, it certainly pervades all of our popular literature and entertainment. As a romance writer, it very much plays a role in mine. It also impacted me on a very personal level too. When I was younger, I bought into the concept hook, line and sinker, praying over and over as teenager that the “right man” would find me and I would find him. He would be the other half of my soul, the piece that a part of me thought was missing.  

To my everlasting, awe-inspired joy, I found him. For eight glorious, passionate years, we shared a life. It wasn’t perfect, by any stretch of the imagination—there was so much passion that it was also extremely volatile and we had some spectacular clashes—but I gave him everything I was. And then, at age twenty six, he died and I was faced with the other side of the soulmate concept: now what? If there is only one soulmate for us, what happens when they die young? 

After his death, my world came apart. Too young to want to live alone for the rest of my life, too alive to want to die with him, I had to accept that the idea of his being my soulmate might actually not quite be what I had thought. I struggled with rage, denial, and distrust, for a very, very long time. It wasn’t until I was faced with a choice about whether I wanted to live or die that I decided I wanted to live and I took the very painful steps to heal from a very traumatic event that up until that point, defined my entire life.  

Now, years after his death, my perspective is different.

We had a very, very powerful connection, yes. It went beyond anything I had ever experienced, and completely bowled me over. It was a gift beyond measure and changed me very, very deeply. Even now, it frankly amazes me at how deep that connection went—it was far beyond anything either of us could control, and took both of us by storm. I have loved people since his death, and been involved with people who trigger old ancestral/family patterns, but that experience was beyond both. Yes, we triggered family patterns in each other, and we loved each other, but what bound us I still can’t describe or even truly explain—even though it has made an appearance in my books, as has the search for what it meant, and means.   

What is a soulmate? My evolving perspective has shown me that I had some very powerful misconceptions about a few things the first time around, including the idea I thought anything in me was missing. We are all whole and complete beings right from inception. I am no exception. He did not “complete” me—but it took his death before I was able to face or accept that. At that point in my life, I had to lose everything before I could figure out that I hadn’t lost what I thought I had. He did not give me anything that wasn’t already present in me. We brought out things in each other, sure, but who I was with him, is very much who I always had been and his death did not “take” anything from me.  

I have no definition, or even expectation on the answer to that question except for what it wasn’t. I still don’t know what it is. Whatever the definition of a soulmate is, he was it. I know this on a very, very deep level. After he died, I certainly entered into relationships with people I truly cared about very deeply, but it wasn’t until recently that I had an experience with someone coming into my life who approximated that experience. All the cliches—a moth to flame, gravitational pull of attraction—all of them slammed through me in this experience. I could no more control my reaction than I could control the sunrise. But again, it didn’t go as I might have expected it to, as romance writer and as someone who once upon a time experienced the fairy tale. While the power of the experience was undeniable, it played out totally differently than my first experience with it, and changed my perspective around soulmates completely. For one thing, while I felt the draw of whatever was happening between us, I truly wasn’t utterly out of control. I might not be able to control my reaction, but my behavior was something else entirely. Timing is critical—and the timing was utterly off. Yes, there was a power punch of attraction of whatever exists between us, but there were other pieces that would have had to fall into place, too, and they simply didn’t. Our paths had crossed, but in that moment, they weren’t destined to travel together. Walking away, both figuratively and literally, was easier than I expected. I won’t say that it wasn’t tarnished by some regret and longing, but it was much, much easier than I expected, and I am so deeply grateful for all the healing that made it so.  

For those who believe in the soul, in the idea that we live our physical lives over and over again, there might be a question: was this my departed soulmate, reincarnated into another life? I certainly asked the question, and the answer I got was both simpler and more complex than I expected: Yes. It was. Except that it wasn’t. He is a different person, with a different history and a different personality, different parents, different perspective—basically, he might be the same being, but he’s totally a different person. And now isn’t our time, although our meeting brought gifts. My soulmate’s death had been a very, very important piece of both of our journeys. As painful as it was, that pain opened doors for me that might not have opened otherwise. And for him, it had taken him a very long time to let his former life go enough to continue living out his soul path by fully embracing this lifetime. We touched for a little while, brought healing to each other. He got to see me, happy and complete, loving and caring for myself, and I got to see him, following his path, and know it’s absolutely perfect for him. I can let him go, knowing that whatever path he is on right now, he will find everything he needs on it. After all, we are all whole and complete, and he was no more the other “half” of me than I was of him.  

Whatever a soulmate is, it transcends the boundaries of our physical lives. Do we all have a soulmate? That I can’t say for certain. Given my experience and awarenesses around life journeys thus far, I suspect it depends on the life journey we are on. For me, this lifetime, my journey is to have met him, then to go on without him—to know that I can, that I can even be joyous and fully alive without him in my life. And I am learning that. I would love to be with my soulmate, to live our lives together, but it is not required for a fulfilling and love-filled life. With that awareness comes an incredible freedom that utterly changes what having a soulmate means to me. 

What does a soulmate mean to me? In short, as not much as I used to think. It’s an experience, like any other we have as physical beings. It’s powerful, but then, so is the parent-child bond, the experience of pain, the joy of love, the experience of death, the flame of attraction, all of it. Like all of our physical experiences, it is incredible and powerful and lots of fun. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t live a fulfilled, joyous, expanded life, whether or not my soulmate is with me. And the gift I got from this brief meeting between us was that love is something far, far beyond anything I could have imagined. We played out something in this lifetime for each other, and we both moved on. There is a strength in that that boggles my mind. To have the strength and love to not only move on, but to know that each one of us is on our perfect path? It’s as far from sacrifice as it’s possible to get—I’m truly not giving anything up and neither is he, either with being together or being apart. That message is beautiful and freeing and something I never knew before.        

My understanding of having a soulmate is still changing and I will undoubtedly continue to play with it in my stories. I don’t doubt that my perception around soulmates will continue to change and I’ll understand it in a totally different way in the future. Do I think I will meet up with my soulmate again? Yes, I will. It may be this lifetime, it might be another one, but we will meet again. Of that I am certain. What will we teach other then? I don’t know. But I do know that we will be different people and whatever plays out in our lives will be something utterly unexpected by both of us—after all, that’s what this journey is all about. Exploration and experience, and I’m excited about both. And in the interim, I wonder how much fun I can have?