How do you know when you’ve found your soulmate?
Everyone says this: so and so is my soulmate. But how do you really know? Do you even know what a soulmate is? I know, at least I know what it means to me. Only took me 40 years.
You just know. Simple. Scarily simple.
I think people say it too much because they wish whoever they’re currently with really was their soulmate so they talk themselves into believing it to be true.
That’s called settling.
Sometimes you idealize someone as your soulmate only after you part ways. The “I didn’t realize what I had til I lost it” scenario where you only remember the good times hence you think you were meant to be together.
And sometimes it’s the “pay homage to the dead” deal. People are always so great when they die.
The living assholes become the “misunderstood”. The bitchy aunt becomes the “she was just troubled” one. The depressed become the stoic, the “too proud to burden anyone with their troubles” ones.
Were these people all your soulmates? (Well maybe not the bitchy aunt but you get what I’m saying.)
So how do you “just know”? (Damn, a lot of quotation marks in this stream of consciousness.) It’s in the eyes. 1000% in the eyes.
My crazy, out there, would-have- been-sued-in-this-day-and-age psych teacher in junior year of high school said that. Who can believe a cliche from a crazy person? Why was he so crazy you ask? I’d say playing the movie Faces of Death in class qualifies. Oh you’ve never seen it? Trust me, don’t! He said if it was too disturbing to watch we could just put our heads down. Um what? Unbelievable but true.
God bless the old days. If that had happened now, that man would have probably ended up teaching psychology in somewhere like Bangladesh eating monkey brains himself. No offense to the Bangladeshis of course.
But besides the traumatic, soul scarring, can’t ever unsee that death movie, the crazy man was right.
It’s always the crazy people who really know what’s up.
I know he was right because I’ve seen it. Experienced it a few wonderful, glorious times. I just didn’t put it all together when I was 16. You don’t put anything together when you’re 16.
That psych teacher’s crazy eyes looked into mine and saw my soul. Ahhhh!!! Scary!!!! Scary because it was true.
He of course wasn’t my soul mate, but he had the gift. He could see what us 16 year olds couldn’t yet. What life, tragedy, true heartache, true loss hadn’t yet taught us. Maybe a few of us, but not the majority who were too worried about our vapid glimpse of an existence that is high school to see the big picture. Too caught up in ourselves to really be able to see, see another person, see their essence, see their soul.
When you finally see that in someone, you’ve found your soulmate.
I’ve learned we have many soulmates in our lifetime. It’s not just some romantic notion that it always has to be your life partner, for better or for worse (in that connotation, usually it’s for worse. Sorry, that’s my jadedness about marriage talking.)
It’s anyone you feel an inexplicable cosmic closeness with. Anyone who makes you…feel.
Again, not necessarily a romantic thing or maybe it is. Just someone who’s eyes speak to you without ever saying anything. Whose happiness, joy, pain, heartache becomes yours as soon as your eyes lock.
Mother, grandmother, sister, friend, boyfriend, bff. These can all be your soulmates. Souls who know each other, who agree to meet up time and time again in different circumstances to teach each other. Teach through togetherness and separateness.
I’ve recently found a soulmate again. It’s…well, it’s just special. That’s why there’s the saying “floating on a cloud” because that’s how a soulmate makes you feel–ethereal.
Because that’s where you met in the first place, in the clouds. In a place of love and patience and kindness. And you agreed to come together again in this current crazy place of life on Earth and learn from each other, whatever form that may take.
The clouds are the place where you wait in line to go on the amusement park ride called human life. You agree to get on the ride together. You swirl around in the dizziness, the exhilaration, the fear, the pain, the gaspness of it all. Then you get off and say what a wild ride!
Then you sign up and do it all over again.
We go on many different rides with many different people. Some butt in line and hop on with you and you both spin around and well, it sucks. Get off bro, this seat is taken!
Soulmate posers. Try not to let them drag you down. Keep that seat free for the genuine people in your life.
So enjoy the ride and keep your heart open. You’ll know your soulmate when you find them.
Just look for the roller coaster in their eyes.
CM
11/23/19
