All Request Tuesday: Soulmates

Do I believe in soulmates?  Great question.  I don't know what that means.  I'm tempted to get all semantic and try to box in the concept in such a way that there's a clear answer.  Because I'm uncomfortable with the fogginess and unprovability of my thoughts in this arena.  But the truth is I do believe in something soulmate-ish, even if I don't really understand it.

I have a friend who feels like a soulmate to me.  I think some kind of barrier that's between most people fell down and we could see into one another more deeply than I've been able to with anyone else.  I think when that was happening we didn't know what to make of it, and wondered whether to call it love.  But we've never been romantically involved, and there's rarely been any flirtation or sexual tension, no jealousy of relationships with others.  He knows me with a deep kindness, and without expectation.  We've gone through spells where we've talked on the phone daily, and others (like now) where months go by.  We share an aesthetic, especially musical, and the same things move us.  So we send each other music and poetry.  A recited line in conversation, or a lyric scrawled on the back of a postcard and sent in the mail, is enough to evoke a whole context of hope or laughter or melancholy that we know the other will understand.  If you met us you'd see nothing but differences.  I'm 20 years younger, highly extroverted, fast moving, comfortable with business and the law, words and ideas, usually exuberant and confident.  He's older, quiet, a craftsman and gardener, comfortable with wood and earth, sober, thoughtful, diffident, hermitish.  But inside it feels like we are two planets orbiting the same star, or two birds flying along the Cape Breton coastline.  I don't have the same connection with anyone else in my life, nor any other way to understand the connection we have than the word soulmate. 

There are two other people in my life who I have connections with that share that kind of otherworldly power and mystery, although sitting here I find myself typing and deleting, typing and deleting trying to explain or describe.  I've not thought to use the word "soulmate" on either one -- I'm not sure why.  The best metaphors that come out, when I try to understand what I feel, seem to involve reincarnation or other equally new-agey concepts.  They are attachments that don't make sense given the actual, real-world experience of knowing one another.  One person awakens the kind of deep, almost maternal, protective affection that makes me feel like I have a brother, even though he's a relatively new friend, nothing like me, not one of my closest friends by any measure except this outsized, purposeful loyalty and goodwill between us.  I don't get it.  But yes.  There are times when something deep inside someone else reaches into me and holds hands with a part of my spirit or my soul.   

I think it can be confusing and problematic to sort out or compare this kind of soul love to the relationships you have to build from the ground up using bricks and mortar tools -- emotions and language and trust and shared experience in the practical everyday world, without the benefit of magic.  I don't think when it happens it's always romantic, or means you're meant to be lovers.  I don't think regular, everyday, "earned" love is diminished by this magical kind of love.  I don't think your obligations to everyone else are to be set aside in the face of it, nor do practical obstacles dissolve in the presence of  a soulmate.  I think it's a kind of connection that is really, really hard to fit into the boxes we set up for describing relationships.  And they are worth holding onto and treasuring and giving yourself to even if labeling the relationship is tricky and problematic. 

That's all I've got on soulmates.  Phew!  It was more than I realized I had.       

Comments

[Rich]

Thank you Sherry. I'm on the verge of tears here.

[Steph]

Another question:
Do you consider yourself a mentor?

[B]

Older men!!! Good choice! Not all of them but a lot of them have the "thing" that experiece brings. He could be more then a lover ever could. Read "journey of souls".
It is a bit of a stretch but has some truth.
Don't disconnect from him at this point in your life.

Older guy.

[Liza Doon]

I have recently been deceived by a guy I met who I with honeslty thought destiny had jinxed us and brought us together and share love with. We were instanesouly connected and it felt like I could share parts of my life that nobody else would listen to. It felt as if he touched me spiritually and psychically. It turned out everything he said and everything he was was a lie. I had prayed for a year to find somebody trueto me. I conclude my soulmates are my close friends and relatives. There love for me has more strength then a relationship with a guy who would just deceive and trick you for false love.