On Having A Soulmate

Folklore has it that every person has a soulmate, a twin soul, a self other than your being that is so like and unlike the original. It is like the coin with two sides and while one can exist without the other, life becomes more full and whole when both meet and become one. Time and again, I have heard of this concept, I have watched cheesy films about it and read books telling how wonderful and great it is to find your soulmate. But skeptic that I am, I dismissed it as myth while at the same time being courteous and careful enough not to disappoint the talkative fans of the concept. Most friends especially the women are “kinikilig” (having a cool feeling) when they blurt out stories about having met their soulmate. I would then be amused when I find out months or years later that said couple(s) disintegrated or broke up. “There is simply no such thing,” I would think, and people who believe in such are either fools or too lonely being alone that they had to invent an ideal concept so their wanting hearts would be consoled.

I’m in my early 30s now and I’ve had my share of girlfriends. I remember entering and exiting into relationships full of hope in the beginning and lots of pain when they end. When you enter and exit relationships like the doors you encounter everyday, there comes a time when you become tired and sick of the whole ritual of courtship and dating. I consider it a blessing though that my relationships were in a state of progress----meaning, the present is a splendid evolutionary development of the previous.

When you are a skeptic like me, I think God plays with you in order to learn a lesson that will be amaze you forever.

I was in my nth relationship when I met my soulmate. I had a girlfriend and we were ok. She had a boyfriend and they were likewise ok. It was something she mentioned during a late night dinner at a popular fastfood outlet in Diliman, which struck me. It was a funny story she was telling about her childhood. Everyone was boisterous and laughing at her for she had this gift of relating stories that can make her audience crack up and laugh endlessly. She was a natural “life of the party.” While I was similarly delighted with her story, I was disturbed and jolted. She was like relating to everyone NOT her childhood adventures but MINE. It was gross and totally sickening for the uninitiated (but our classmates loved it!) as it was about how she played with insects (cockroaches, mainly) and tortured them like slaves before killing them (slowly dropping hot candlewax on their heads and torsos while watching them die). “This can’t be true. This can’t be happening, “I thought. I’m the only person who had those memories and I haven’t told anyone about them simply because I don’t think they’re dinner stories. And this girl has managed to transform my dark side into a lovely comedy act that had all of our friends laughing in stitches.

That was how it began three years ago. Since that night, her presence haunted me even when I’m alone. Strange yes, but a warm kind of peculiarity.

We drifted closer. We dated surreptitiously. The attraction was undeniable. What was weird was the fact that this girl was just an ordinary classmate for nearly two years until that fateful night. We didn’t notice each other before but now the magnetism between us saps any form of resistance we thought we always had.

When we could no longer deny that we were more of an item than our own girlfriend and boyfriend, we decided to break up with them. There were tears and hurtful words of course, but we stood pat on our basic reason to be together: it is meant to be.

We were inseparable. We burned the midnight oil not to study but to talk endlessly on the phone. We will usually begin talking when the sun sets and end when the sun is already up again the following day. We had to stop because we had to go to school again. It would have been exhausting and narcolepsy should have set in, but surprisingly, we felt more energy. It was like our blood was replaced with caffeine. We also noticed improvement in our grades as we were reciting more enthusiastically as if trying to upstage each other in front of our professors. After school, we would hurry home so we can talk once more on the phone. We missed each other so much it seemed we haven’t seen each other for ages.

We were suddenly “in-tune” with each other’s thoughts. She could guess what I was going to say before I said it. I could read her mind before she thought of telling what she was going to say. We can no longer keep count of the number of times we texted and called each other at the particular time one was thinking about the other.

When we eat together in restaurants, we do not sit across each other but beside each other. We always want to be skin-to-skin. It is also worth noting that in a particular food we are eating, say pizza or the ordinary pancit (a noodle dish), she eats the parts I do not like and I eat the parts she doesn’t like (crust and garlic). For the first time in my life, I’m eating with no left overs.

Holding each other’s hand and looking keenly at each other’s eyes was enough to bring both of us to tears. We didn’t understand it before, and it was really weird and creepy, but as time went on, we realized the tears were due to the enormous longing (enormous as in humongous!) we have for each other and the years and years we missed each other when we were not together. Our first love song was Chantal Kreviazuk”s Feels Like Home. It was true. It’s really like coming home after all those years of searching.

Our pet names are kambal ko which translated means “my twin.” In a 24-hour period, almost a hundred or more “I-love-you” exchanges transpire between us in all forms conceivable: written, verbal, or physical (!).

For the third straight year, we have seen each other everyday. The longing for each other still amazes us. Other couples would’ve probably grown sick of each other seeing one another everyday but us? We still can’t get enough of each other. No natural or man-made reason has prevented us from being in each other’s arms.

Further talk on our past and growing-up years revealed a lot of similarities: we were both born and grew up on coastal lying areas (Navotas and Lemery Batangas), we were both left alone at home by our working parents, we were both straight valedictorian and honor students from kinder through collegiate years, we were raised by elderly people, and yes, we played with disgusting insects.

Fights? Oh yes, we started having them on our second year. But what was really unusual was it never lasts long enough to separate us. We end every spat with a taut hug and a torrid kiss so passionate Clark Gable and Ava Gardner would’ve closed their eyes.

We celebrate Valentine’s Day everyday even on Good Friday. This Valentine’s Day as in any other occasion, we will once more try to upstage each other in terms of gift surprises and love offerings. Last year I gave her and her grandma and mom flowers while she did the same for my folks. Imagine that! We end up scratching our heads when we discovered that our own surprises aren’t really surprises as they are so much similar even though we were initially very secretive about it. This year, we await the happiness we have planned for each other. The bottomline has always been pleasing the other.

Let me assure everyone that soulmates are true and that they exist. I am sure there are many like us who can share the same beautiful love stories we have. But do not feel bad if you have not found yours yet. As it is, soulmates will drift towards each other as what happened to us. No need to search. Just pray to God and it will happen one day.

As I end, let me share this quotation from a Soulmate book by Douglas Pagels:
“I am so glad that you are a part of my life. It is such a privilege---to know you, and to walk together on the paths that take us in so many beautiful directions. I had heard of ‘soul mates’ before, but I never knew such a person could exist---until I met you.
“Somehow, out of all the twists and turns our lives could have taken, and out of all the chances we might have missed, it almost seems like we were given a meant-to-be-moment---to meet, to get to know each other, and to set the stage for a special togetherness…
“When I am with you, I know that I am in the presence of someone who makes my life more complex than I ever dreamed it could be.
“I turn to you for trust, and you give it openly. I look to you for inspiration, for answers, and for encouragement, and---not only do you never let me down---you lift my spirits up and take my thoughts to places where my troubles seem so much further away and my joys feel like they’re going to stay in my life forever.
“I hope you’ll stay forever, too. You are my soulmate and I want you to know that my world is reassured by you, my tomorrows need to have you near, so many of my smiles depend on you…and my heart is so thankful that you are here now.”