Do Soulmates Steal Your Soul?

I heard someone say the other day, “soulmates steal your soul...” and that got me thinking...

I am not sure my soul has ever been stolen, but I have allowed my love for another person to rob me of security, financial wellbeing, safety, peace of mind, trust, fidelity and many, many hours of sleep.  Did I lose my soul?  I don’t think so...but perhaps an argument can be made that while my soul was not stolen, it was more offered up to a person who was not worth my time, energy or effort, even though they appeared in soulmate like form in the beginning.  I am not sure if my soul was stolen so much as I leveraged it in some sort of misguided, misanthropic idea of salvation via love offered and desperately needed.  I am not sure something that was offered quite willingly can be stolen per se.  But leveraged, curtailed, abused, these things are possible, I know THAT for certain.

People talk all the time about soulmates, wanting to find them, needing them, ideas about them, what they might look like, feel like, taste like.  And it is a lofty and heady pursuit this idea that there is another person out there walking the earth in search of YOU!  And together, when you meet, your souls mesh with each other and you are seen, heard, valued, loved and respected...for the rest of your days!

I used to believe in soulmates.  Now I believe in them for other people.  I am just not sure I am soulmate material.  I do not believe I have it in me to be someone’s soulmate.  I made a commitment a long time ago, before I really knew what I was doing, that I was going to be my own soulmate...and that idea turned into a prophesy and well, here we are.

I am not sure I can pledge myself to another.  I have been alone doing this whole life and living thing for so long, I think my window on soulmate kind of love has come and passed.  I have only felt like I might have found “him, Mr. Soulmate” once in my life.  Well twice, but the first time I was really drunk all the time and we just had great sex and fun.  I didn’t know better at the time that soulmatehood required more than great sex and fun.  The second time, I really thought I had it.  Although I don’t think so anymore.  I was not wholly myself.  I was not completely honest and he was not willing to accept me and us for who we were.  The love was there, for sure.  But we both lacked an ability to really commit to this lifetime living/loving thing.  I mean, we both liked the idea and gave it a go, but in review, we both were first and foremost committed to ourselves.  I see that very clearly now.  What masqueraded as me offering myself up to him in a soulmate like fashion was really just codependence.  I see that now as well.  I will not wager what it was for him...

Perhaps I am not soulmate material because I kind of believe that soulmates steal your soul.  I just know when this person said that to me, I heard it.  I felt it. It landed like a vibration hits a tuning fork.

I would love to point out that I am a worthy and worthwhile person to make your soulmate, but I also have to own that I lack follow through, am easily distracted and have this very hard and lasting commitment to my independence, autonomy and freedom.  Romantic love has always had prison vibes for me.  I think true love, soulmate shit will have to feel like freedom for me to ever be able to enjoy it and have it last.

I have come to the idea now that perhaps there isn’t a soulmate for me, but there are trysts and connections and lessons and loving intimate engagements that are what happens for me as I move forward.  I don’t know if I can marry up my life with another’s life.  Some of me wants that but always the larger part does not.  As much as I may like someone, I have never not been able to live without any man I dated.  I leave and move on and it is fine.  Sometimes there are regrets, more often there is just relief.

So I don’t know about this concept of soulmates.  I do think some people have them and they both work hard to maintain them, to keep the love alive.  A mutual and equal partnership dedicated to loving, supporting and nurturing the other person for your lifetime.  I love this.  I really, really do.  I’m a romantic at heart.  My problem, is that love, like life has so very often failed to live up to my expectations.  My imagination has always far exceeded the reality of life and loving. The way it plays out in my head is always so much better than what happens in real life...and I am not sure I have ever gotten over that particular disappointment.  And now, admittedly, it stands in my way.

I am capable of being present in the moment.  And fuck if I don’t keep trying.  My friend Darren says, “God loves him a little trier...”  And anyone looking at my life knows God fucking loves me a lot. Just look at all the shit I have survived and am still here, living, loving and generally very, very happy about it all, even the dark hardnesses that have befallen me.  And I keep dating which means I keep trying, although it will come as no shock or surprise to anyone that my efforts in the dating department are flagging with each passing day. Each day I do without romantic love, seems to kind of seal my fate to meander the rest of the way through this life in solitary form. Not what I wanted at all, just seems to be my lot which I grow more comfortable with every single day.

I am not sure if soulmates steal your soul...but I do know that even though I want one, I have to own that I remain forever fearful that if I found one, my soul would be in peril.  Perhaps the kind of peril that has to happen to change me from one limited version of myself to something greater.  But my track record is not good on this front.  Most relationships I have been in have left me depleted, wrung out and depressed.  Not a lot of history that is worth repeating that is for sure.  So I kind of think that I just may be the kind of person who just gets lost in the shuffle of loving in the quest to find that soulful, mated relationship.

And today, that is ok.  I don’t fit the mold.  And honestly I am tired of trying.  My attempts, really pretty pathetic upon further reflection and review...but fuck if I don’t keep trying, which is kind of miraculous when I think about it.  My willingness to walk up to what always ends with crushing disappointment is kind of spectacular.  And I do mean that in a traffic accident kind of way.  I can only liken my soulmate search to the phoenix, engaging in a course of conduct that is going to consume her again and again and yet, rises from her own ashes over and over and over again.  But it is a loop that always leads to her destruction and rebirth...but that process is circular and that is exactly how it feels to me. A cycle, an eddy, a monotonous cycle that I am doomed to repeat, just like that fucking phoenix.

But I am getting tired, even for a phoenix...(thank you Tay Tay for that absolutely spot on lyric)

Again, still...