Cry, baby.

A few weeks ago, I flippantly made a comment to my girlfriend while we were cooking dinner that I "didn't think I believed in 'the one.'" Trying to backtrack when she took offense, I posited that it was perhaps a Hollywood construct — purely the stuff of love stories and girlhood fantasies. I murkily tried to explain that as far as "soulmates" go, I wasn't sure that the concept incorporated the idea that there was only one soul for each of us — and that true happiness couldn't be ours until we had found them.
But the truth is, I lied. I have always believed in soulmates, always hoped that I would find "the one," always fantasized that "forever" was possible. It's a lie I'd been repeating to myself for a couple of years — since the end of my till-death-do-us-part marriage (non-soulmate #1) and the heartbreak of another romance with my best friend (non-soulmate #2). If soulmates did exsist, I'd either already blown it or didn't deserve to find it. So I began the trick of convincing myself that such things were silly constructs meant to drive us all insane. I was above it all.

•••

Yesterday I convinced my girlfriend to watch one of my favorite tear-jerker movies, The Notebook. There are many emotional scenes in the movie, but I surprised myself as I began to choke back tears in the first two minutes of the film — tears that didn't subside until the end of the film, at which point the climax had my girlfriend sobbing as well, and she's not a crier like me (at least not admittedly). I had been telling her for days that I wanted to watch the movie, to make myself cry. Not because I particularly like to cry, but because every once in awhile I need to make myself remember what it is that I really do believe. As if trying to convince myself that "soulmate" was not something within my grasp would somehow insulate me from heartbreak and longing I'd already experienced. So I put on this armor of disbelief as a shield against pain, all the time affirming that I didn't deserve that kind of lifelong soul-connection with someone.

•••

"Tears are the hallmark of the Holy Spirit." Quoting her wise aunt, Delle used to always push me to examine the tears that would sometimes overwhelm me. And she was right — those tears acted as salve to my wounded soul — always pointing me to the truth that I rebelled against, calling me to surrender deeper and deeper. I cried the first time I saw Delle up at the St. G's pulpit — my soul knowing it had found a spiritual home. And now I delight in my tears, because they force my body to give it's attention to the truth before me. I needed that movie to shatter the skin that I sometimes let grow too thick around me — and remember. I want forever, I want soulmate, I want "the one." I have a lot of healing to do, but I plan to do it arm in arm with my love.
Nevermore, my love.