Soulmates

How long have we listened to people say “Oh I’ve found my soul mate”! I
used to be one of those believers in the whole soul mate theory – “used to”
being the operative words. The closest I’ll even come to copping to it is
kindred spirits. I do believe that people share similar thoughts, desires,
style, etc. But to say that they’re soul mates? I don’t think so. Sure I think
we all would love to believe the whole soul mate theory – but if polled most
probably would say they lay victim to every time they’ve actually
considered it. Not to mention those that actually have said those words out
loud. Zing – a catastrophe in the waiting!

I know I appear to have a negative twist on this but it’s based on practical
and recurring experiences. Soul Mates just don’t exist! Or do they?……..
Nope. Not buying. Can’t even rationalize the idea to myself. In fact,
writing this is somewhat twisted humor. And heck, I’ve not even lived to
the ripe old age of “OLD” and I know just how much of a farce finding
ones’ soul mate is. It’s quite absurd.

Now I’m one that by principle looks through life wearing the rosiest of
colored glasses but I’ve just had enough disillusions surrounding soul mates.
And putting the laughter aside – it’s not all that funny. As a little girl I grew
up dreaming about my knight in shining armor that was going to awaken me
from a dream with a kiss and live happily ever after. But back to reality –
we need to recognize that in a world filled with crime, hate, pollution,
starvation, kids killing kids, and very few “they lived happily ever after, the
end”, there is little room for the possibility that soul mates exist.

So what to do? Easy – don’t go in search of it. I’m not suggesting we settle
either. In fact we should never settle – it only breeds resentment. And if
we’re honest and take a raw look at ourselves we’ll see that perhaps another
caused the injury, but the ever-present scar is our fault. I don’t know if it’s
just a women thing or if it crosses gender but we seem to hang on, holding
on to what our perception of our soul mate is. And for those of us that are
anal-retentive perfectionist we are definitely our worst enemies. We stay for
the simple fact we cannot fail.

Luckily as one who doesn’t like to fail – I realized “getting out” of the soul
mate business was actually releasing me for better things. I’m definitely
much happier. And guess what? That’s where the secret lies. We must be
happy with ourselves. If we look to others or things to give us that “happy”
feeling we will always be in the search and recovery mode. And I don’t
know which is worse – search or recovery. Searching has a tone of
anticipation, exhilaration, and hope that the euphoria of finding our true soul
mate lies just waiting for us to discover. But is it wishful hope? Recovery –
well no way to sugar coat this – it’s damage control. The time we spend
picking ourselves back up, piecing what we were before the slight.

Do we ever truly recover? I don’t know. I guess we live in layers. Layer
over layer of our life experiences, relationships, and interactions. I feel the
scary outcome of past hurts is never trusting or giving love another chance.
Sure for a short spell we all must retract into ourselves and live skeptically
about love truly being ours to claim. But long term - we’re human and we
need interaction - we all need to love and feel loved. It gives us meaningful
purpose. Admit it. The best of careers, adventures, hobbies, friends, and
other things we clutter our lives with cannot replace loving someone and
being loved in return. Don’t take me literally - they all serve important
purposes, however, on their own they are no substitute for love. I remember
asking a very driven boss years ago when all is said and done do you want
on your tombstone to read “I made a lot of money but died lonely” or “I
lived, I loved, I succeeded”?

Even confessing that I have a less than positive view about finding ones’
soul mate – I am a hopeless romantic. I’ve changed a lot in a year’s time;
since the end of my marriage – but being a hopeless romantic is one thing
that will never change. Here’s an oxymoron – I’m just a keener, smarter,
more realistic yet hopeless romantic. Heck we can’t control everything now
can we?

For those of you that are die-hard soul mate seekers – may the force be with
you. Although in the end all that truly matters is that we lived our life. Sure
we made some mistakes along the way – but if we never jump in we neither
sink nor swim. The key is to be an active participant in one’s life - not a
spectator.