Dear Soulmate

Dear Soulmate,

We haven’t met yet. At least, I don’t think we have. Sometimes I think of you, of what I might have with you someday. I hope you’re real.

I have to confess I’ve started to lose hope that you are. I look for you as I travel to different cities. Sometimes I think that maybe you’re just in the next one I’ll go to. Maybe you’re in London. Maybe you’re in New York. Always slightly out of reach. Always without a trace.

I find pieces of you in different celebrities, different fictional characters. I imagine lives I might have with them. Where we sit and write poetry in a cozy cabin. Where they save me, and I save them. They hold your place because it’s easier to pretend they’re real than to face the fact that you might not be.

I used to dream of an epic love story. All the best stories had one. The prince would show up, and his love for the princess would save her. Or the woman’s love for her family and her people would save the realm. Love was supposed to be so powerful that it could change the world. Love seems a lot more selfish in the present day.

There’s a myth I like that soulmates are supposed to be one soul split in two, destined to find each other. That we are born alone, missing each other, and we spend our lives trying to reconnect. But I was not born alone. I have a twin. Does that mean I don’t get to have a soulmate because I don’t get to be lucky twice? There’s so much beauty and mystery that comes to tales of love. But real life seems far too mundane for any of it to be real.

“Whatever souls are made of, ours are made of the same stuff” it’s such a beautiful quote (that might be slightly wrong, but I refuse to look it up) from Wuthering Heights. But I HATED that couple. He sucked, and she was insufferable. They were both nauseating and not in a cute way. Their souls were made of the same obnoxious material, but in a way…they were kind of perfect for each other. And they were crazy about each other, him telling her to haunt him after her death (I think, I read it a long time ago, and I have no interest in rereading). There’s a beautiful kind of pain within the greatest love stories. There’s a sweet agony to love that I almost long to feel. Maybe it’s because I lock myself away from pain that I can’t feel that love.

I know what my friends say. They tell me to put myself out there, and I know they’re right. I should. But is that really you beneath the picture of the man holding a giant fish or the sleazy pick-up lines? That can’t be. You can’t be the guy asking me to watch a movie in his bed or meet him in a subway after midnight.

25 is a terrible age, I think. There’s an expectation that life will finally be sorting itself out. Careers are beginning to take off. Friendships are cemented, and new ones are forming. You’re supposed to have your own circle, your own routine. But I don’t think I have any of that. I’m trapped between the sense that I should be a grown-up and the idea that right now is when I get to explore and be wild. There’s a loneliness in the center of those two. In between old and new circles. I live in that center, expecting major life changes, yet terrified of them coming.

I think I'm mostly just scared, that I won’t find you, that I’ll settle, that I’ll have something mundane when I know that I can love extraordinarily. I am so full of love that I want to give to someone. Or at least, I think I once was full of that love. I don’t know if I feel it now. But I’m sure, if I met you that I could find it.

Sometimes I think I messed things up with the chances I did have. There was one guy on Bumble, and almost instantly we clicked, and I felt like a kid with a crush. But timing was terrible, as it often is, and I was scared that he just wanted something quick. I ran away before really finding out one way or another. I think I’m so afraid of being hurt, I run away too soon.

I’d rather be a ghost than be wounded. Rather be dead than dying.

Dearest soulmate, have I already ghosted you?

But enough about me, I want to hear about you. What do you like to do? What movies make you cry? What book got you so excited you couldn’t sleep until you finished it? Do you like to run? Would you let me teach you tennis? Do you already know it? What music do you find comfort in? What do you like to sing? Do you sing in the car as loud as you can? Are you loud when I’m quiet? Quiet when I’m loud? Are we more of each other’s same? Or a compliment to each other’s differences? What’s your favorite drink? Not an alcoholic drink, but the kind that makes you grin when you order it. Do you ever think of me? Will you even like me?

There’s so many things I want to ask you, so much I want to know about you. But I’m afraid to ask the most important one of all. Are you even real?

With love,

Me