Soulmate Sherry

Do you believe in Soulmates?

I read something interesting today. Your soulmate isn’t someone you can’t live without, rather someone you can make a life with. I keep getting asked more and more these days, #1 Do I believe in soulmates – where the answer was immediate – yes, and #2 Do I think I have met my soulmate?

I’m a bit more hesitant to answer the #2. In my heart, the answer is yes, absolutely. Unfortunately, this means the answer to Question #3 – Do you believe you can make a life without your soulmate has to be – I have to.

Till today, no doubt, Rex has come closest to claiming my Soulmate Crown. Even after he hooked up wit the Singaporean, I got a midnight visit beseeching me to be in his life, as he thought of me as his soulmate and "no one will ever know him better in this lifetime." So what – he still left my room for hers at the end of that plea, completely ignoring the heartbreak still in my eyes. If this was my soulmate – all hope was gone for a happily ever after.

I’m not sure if its because he was my first love, my first serious boyfriend, my first …. everything, really, and I don’t know any better, or its because I still haven’t met Him.

I hope and pray everyday that it is the latter ....

When the Philosopher entered my life, all sunshine and fresh air, I was besotted. It wasn’t the sick kind of obsessive "love" I shared with Rex, it was just lovely, and sweet. I don’t know if it was because it was his first relationship, and thus, the boy was still fresh-faced and idealistic, or because the two of us really did make beautiful music together. I loved our relationship – I describe it as simply lovely, almost innocent, and pure …. And very very happy.

When Rex wasn’t with me, I drove myself mental wondering where he was and what he was up to and why he wasn’t calling me. When I was "forced" to go out – I spent all night on the phone, texting him, telling him I loved him, that I couldn’t wait to go back to be with him. It was sick. I couldn’t breathe if he wasn’t within arms reach. It drove all my friends to despair, but I couldn’t see how unhealthy it was at the time.

But Rex was no different. Being almost a recluse, he rarely went anywhere without me or his best friend. Once, an old school friend of theirs threw the biggest shindig of the season in his country estate. Entire buses had been hired to chauffeur the old boys to the venue. Despite Rex and his BFF getting their tuxedo’s done and dusted, Rex kept wailing to me how he didn’t want to go, how he’d rather have spent the weekend with me in his p.j’s.

I made him go, a part of me not wanting to go myself and meet all his posh public school educated friends. Me, who had never shied away from a challenge in all my life! I’ve dated a Duke’s son as as well as a Baron, and I couldn’t take on a bunch of poncy arsed tossers?

I don’t know who that girl was, but she wasn’t me.

True to form, he’d texted me all night, telling me how much he missed me. One of them asked me to sleep in his bed, so he knew exactly where I was and could picture it in his mind. And the final one, at 4am, saying he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was on his way home to me. He got in about 9, and as promised, I was in his bed, waiting, my heart bursting with love for him.

I thought it was a measure of how much he loved me. I was wrong.

I never wanted to be half a person, and needing another to complete me. Neither did Rex. We were both headstrong, fiercely independent individuals that turned to mush without each other. We couldn’t go through life like this, and he recognised it before I did.

I know I will never love like that again. And I am grateful for it. It took every last bit of my energy and emotion to be in that relationship. And getting over it was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

No, I want to settle down with a man like the Philosopher. Someone who lets me be free, and encourages me to be myself. Someone who walks beside me, not someone who’s tugging me along his path in life. Someone who makes me laugh, not cry. Rex always said what a beautiful smile I had, but with an absent look or a sharp word, he’d wipe it away in a flash. The waterworks wouldn’t stop throughout my whole relationship, but the Philosopher never made me cry once, except with joy.

I remember the first morning after well. I was to catch a train at noon for a weekend away in Brussels, and he needed to catch an early train to get to work on time. Still not really that into him all that much, I was fast asleep as he showered and dressed. Selfishly, I’d hoped he’d let me sleep in and catch the bus by himself but he beseeched me to wait with him for the bus. Not really caring how I looked, I pulled on the nearest available clothes and sleepily walked with him. As we passed by the hallway mirrors, I gasped in horror at my morning face, going "You know I’m capable of looking better than this!"

His answer simply was "You’re beautiful." Whether I’m dressed up or dressed down, in my p.j’s or my best MAC mask, the boy adored me and I never once doubted it.

I sat on his lap, as we awaited the bus. It was so obvious we were in post-coital bliss, and for the first time, I realised everyone was staring at us in smiles. The old, the young, even the dogs seemed to be grinning at our newfound love. When the bus finally came, it was full of these little old ladies, the only people who were awake so early on a Saturday morning. He kissed me sweetly in goodbye, but kept looking back to blow me kisses, not caring that he had an audience.

Feeling my heart melt, I too, turned into a shy teenager. I shyly waved in return, my brown-eyed gaze locked onto his big innocent blue one. And saw the faces of the old ladies looking at me with such pleasure, to witness the joy of the first blush of young love in the summertime.

The Philosopher may not have been my first love, but it seemed as if I was his. And by being with me, he gave me a second chance to enjoy it, and this time, only take away the good memories with me.