Mirror of my soul – Stories of you, me, the world and eternity

Lying on your back in the hospital emergency room, you find it hard to breathe. Little do you know that this is only your first of three visits to this A&E department this week as you struggle to even lift yourself off the floor. Your whole body hurts and you feel like you’ve just been run over by a train. You’re convinced that you are dying, or at the very least having a heart attack. The pain all over your body, especially in your chest, is unbearable but not even the painkillers can ease your agony or erase the memory of her words.

It’s not just the physical pain which leaves you feeling like a carcass; it’s the fact that you feel as if you’ve just been slapped awake from a zombie-like deep sleep. Nothing makes sense right now. You cannot for the life in you begin to understand how her words perfectly describe your deepest feelings, after all, you always hid them so skilfully – or so you thought. How does she know? Who/What is she? Who are you? And what if, just what if, it is all REAL?

Three years earlier, after a beautiful summer spent together in the most romantic City in the world, she had simply vanished to the thin air. Somewhere in the excitement of meeting her you had omitted to tell her just how unresolved the situation with your estranged wife actually was. You had not intended to deceive anyone but you had not expected to fall so hard and fast for this woman so unlike your “usual type”. When your wife arrived in town to see you, and with you unable to turn her away out of your “duty” towards her, you pulled back; torn between your guilt and your deep, unexpected feelings for this woman. You told her that you always valued her as a friend and that everything else had been a “bonus”, not meant to last. She never shared with you the agonising rejection that she went through feeling you pull away, knowing that she had no tools to manipulate you into staying, into giving her any of your attention, because she truly did love you and did not want to interfere with your life. She only wanted to see you happy. She had no idea that you were pushing her away, not because you didn’t love her, but because you just needed some space to figure out what to do.

When you try to see her again a few weeks later she is gone without a trace. She has left her job, her phone line is disconnected and her mobile phone won’t answer. The emails that you send go unanswered. You don’t know where she lives and there is no Facebook or online presence to trace. You don’t even have a picture of her. You leave messages on her answer phone and try to reach her through mutual friends but to no avail. They tell you she is back together with her boyfriend. You leave her hundreds, perhaps thousands of messages all the while convincing yourself that you are only trying to understand why she is now suddenly avoiding you; that your growing anxiety has nothing to do with the fact that every day without her hurts like hell. You’ve only known this woman for a few short weeks for God’s sake! Nevertheless, the feelings of deep, soul-shredding loss haunt you and you cannot help but feel like you’ve been ripped apart. The magnitude of these feelings seems disproportionate to the short time you spent together; it simply makes no sense. In fact, you don’t understand any of it, but deep inside the realisation is growing: this is all your fault and there is nothing you can do about it now.

As the months go by with still no word from her, you do everything to keep yourself busy. Gradually your time together starts to feel more and more like just a dream, like something that happened to you in another dimension, in another reality. 18 months later, having gone through your own dark night of the soul, you finally surrender and leave it all to the powers that be. To gain some closure, you write her a long email where you pour out all your feelings; about your souls being connected, about how much you love her and about the pain she left behind. She never replies. In fact, just reading the first few words sent her into a downright panic and had her hurry for the delete button without ever reading your beautiful words. She too has done everything she can to move on and is simply not ready to revisit her intense feelings for you. You decide to leave the country; in fact, you leave the continent and sell your soul to the corporate devil, throwing yourself into work and back into your marriage in order to regain some normality.

Three years go by and then one morning in your inbox is an email from her. Little do you know that she’s just had a spiritual awakening and is now being bombarded by signs and synchronicities from everywhere telling her to come to YOU. She has no idea what it all means and just wants to know you are happy – and you are now! Suddenly you find yourself back in the sweet synchronistic flow of your energies, back in your uncomplicated, timeless togetherness; burning the phone lines, exchanging emails. In your heart you had always known that she’d return, although you had not really allowed yourself to believe it. Everything seems to click right back into place, as if she never went away.

You want to see her but she hesitates, conflicted about her unresolved feelings for you. Can she trust you not to break her heart this time? She writes to you about love which calls the souls back home; you talk to her about marriage, about children, about how you are still looking for your polar opposite – something she always knew she was. When she writes to you about the union of two souls, without realizing she is answering your deepest questions. Yes Yes Yes!!!!!!!!! Could it be that all along she was feeling the same? You must see her to be sure. You let her believe that you are available, looking for the very things that she so eloquently writes to you about. You know that if you told her that you are still married she might slip away again and you cannot let that happen. With every day your desire to see her grows. Soon enough, the pull is simply too strong to resist and she crosses the Ocean to arrive at your doorstep.

The reunion is everything you had dreamt of and more. She is still that same woman you never stopped loving, the only one who always saw you for who you are, for ALL that you are and could be. You kiss her passionately, out of breath, telling her how much you have missed her all these years. The feelings of home-coming, of rightness, of simply feeling your restless spirit finally calm upon the waves of her love overwhelm you as you find yourself swept away by the unstoppable momentum of your timeless passion. As you feel yourself falling for her again you desperately look for a sign, a proof that this really is REAL; that this is not just a fantasy. Falling for her again scares you to death. You barely made it through the hell of losing her last time. There is no way you could survive it again.

Doubts seep in. You know she is still with her boyfriend and you are still married. You never discussed your feelings for each other before and it is all still a big question mark for you. As much as you are ecstatic to have her here, your logical mind just can’t keep up. What does this all mean? She has returned, like you always hoped she would, speaking of soul mates, about energies, about choosing love not fear, but you need to be sure that she feels these things for YOU. Nervous to the point of having to smoke a cigarette through the conversation even though you are not regularly a smoker, you finally ask her how you fit into all this. You ask her if she loves you, but then, fearing her answer, in the same breath reject her before she has had the chance to properly answer.

You tell her how you’ve done all your soul searching and you know what you want, and it is to stay in your “safe” marriage. You blame her for expecting you to be more than you want to be. Yet she is not here to demand anything of you, but to call you to be open, to be vulnerable, to be true to YOU; to discover the meaning of this connection together. After all, you’ve felt it too. But you can’t. Instead, you pull away. You make love to her for one last time but as the sun rises on the city you draw a line across your love. You tell yourself that it was never meant to be more than a temporary thing and that this, here, was only for old times’ sake.

The last few days of her visit are painful for you. All your feelings of being unloved, of not being good enough, of knowing she will be soon gone, of longing for her but knowing you must “ do the right thing” are making your chest tight. You want to touch her, to hold her but you deny this from yourself. You are straining yourself in order to keep it all in and it actually physically hurts. You wish you could just open up but you don’t want to say anything so as not to give her any false hope, or to set yourself up for a great fall once again.

Nothing scares you more than to allow yourself to believe in this love, to trust her, to trust your heart. You don’t even trust yourself anymore! When she gently brushes your arm one night, attempting to break the tense atmosphere, you jump up telling her that if you really loved her then you would fetch the stars and the moon from the sky for her, but you won’t because you don’t. She is taken aback. Why the outburst? She can see just how nervous and closed off you are. The conflict in you is so obvious to her. Unafraid, she confronts you about your thoughts, which she can hear, and their conflict with your heart, which she can feel. You feel exposed, vulnerable, fighting to hold all the intense emotions inside, denying any conflict whatsoever exists and counting the days, hours and minutes to when she will be gone again, while at the same time dreading the emptiness that you know will follow.

On the final day, hit by a sudden fear that you might lose her forever if you don’t speak now you tell her that yes, you DO care, you DO want to see her, you could have taken it to the end of the line with her but you are afraid of losing her again. You tell her what it felt like to fall from the pedestal that she had put you on, what it felt like to leave her 5,000 messages and get no answer. You tell her you are afraid that she will disappear again. Secretly you know that she is too wild, too spontaneous and too unpredictable, her emotions so raw, so honest, that your logical mind simply cannot cope. You know that if you let her in, she might just run with your heart and vanish, and you simply cannot bear the take that chance.

As you stand there on a New York City pavement the feel of her lips is still fresh on yours. The letter she has just pressed into your hand is now the only thing that remains of her, along with a million questions unanswered. “Read it when I am gone”, she said. Immediately as you read the first words something stirs deep within you. She always did that; managing to touch places within you that you never knew existed; places that she had befriended all those years ago and then left in unbearable pain. Her words are so beautiful and sincere; they speak the Truth, cutting straight through to the vulnerable, real you – straight to where it still hurts. The inner journey that she is inviting you on is one of overwhelming emotions and of unresolved feelings of loss & freedom, love & longing.

My dearest,

You slipped into my life, so quietly, so comfortably… it seemed you had always been there. Everything felt so natural, so open … Just like running into a good friend you haven’t seen for years. We picked up where we left off, as if there hadn’t been any time lost between us. There was an instant attraction – a strong feeling of “At last!” when I finally found that one soul that remembered how I liked to be held, kissed, and touched. It felt like an electric current of energy flowing between us – the release of the awesome power of polarity of our beings. My soul instantly recognized and remembered you and I felt this on a very deep level within myself. I felt like I had known you forever.

All my feelings of not belonging suddenly dissipated in the comfort of our timeless connection and in the call to return “home” emanating from the cosmos which reassured me that this was the love I’d been waiting for all my life. You touched places within me that I didn’t even know existed. From that first moment, I knew that it didn’t matter what happened or what we became because in itself I had found something so precious and special that it would stand the test of time and that it would always be a part of me. Just having that knowledge felt like a whole new world had opened its arms to me and welcomed me in.

A stream of light fell upon my head. I felt it illumine my deepest secrets and bring them to the surface of my consciousness. I was not pleased to see some of them, yet the others filled me with the glory of the Truth. But what do you do with Truth like that? How do you accept absolutely knowing something you don’t want to know; something that will disrupt everything you’ve so carefully set up? How do you trust the silent voice of your heart above everything you’ve been taught?

I had always known there was more. There had to be. Yet no one around me had told about the things I now knew. There was no reason for me to believe as I did. But as much as I believed and I knew, I struggled to understand it. It simply did not fit any preconceived idea or conception, or resemble anything I knew.

But one thing I learned is that some things cannot be explained. Sometimes some things just have to be expected. Even with no factual proof, no solid substance to hold in your hand and nothing to actually see with your eyes… This thing is undeniably one of those things. It’s pure bliss and unmistakably, from the depths of my soul, something blooms. I feel my soul reaching out to touch, to live and die, to breathe, to dance. This huge energetic vacuum is drawing me to life, to you, with a force that is nearly beyond my imagination. I can feel it pulling and pushing me, attracting and repelling me.

A metamorphosis of awareness, new growth, the feel of you burn intensely in my soul. This connection has taken on a life of its own, and I get swept up in its undeniable magnetic force. Somewhere within me you have awakened a deep inner knowing I must follow, like a salmon swimming upstream, at all costs. The journey must be made. Life has become paradoxical. 24/7 I am aware that I am no longer the same person, some transformation has occurred and I will never be the same again. The ground under my feet, everything I knew for a fact to be true, who I am, all of that is gone in a puff of smoke. And worst of all, the fear that it’s all in my head.

Half of my time is spent going NO: it could never work, I am crazy, he is nobody, I dug my grave now I lie in it, why screw up everyone’s life in addition to my own… I doubt myself, I doubt you… even God. The other half is YESSS… misty, high dreams and visions and flashes of being with you, how it feels, how it is, things you say, the timeless feeling of it… Trying to integrate you in my life makes me crazy; trying to balance you against anything or everything else. Trying to rank things, to decide, it makes no sense. You are completely other, this is a completely other thing than anything else, it just doesn’t relate.

I do not wonder if I know you, my soul knows you for me. My mind confirms this every day for it picks at and tries to make sense of what it cannot. You are the catalyst that reminds me who I am. I rediscover dreams, aspirations, meaning and talent that make who I really am. You have allowed me to remember that I am as magnificent as you, that the wall I have hidden behind isn’t necessary anymore. You are the mirror that magnifies my best attributes, the mirror where I see myself in a new light.

With the rest of the world, I exist in a dream awaiting the finale to a sorrowful play, forever torn between wanting to be all that I am, and playing a role to protect myself and others from rejection, from disappointment, from the consequences of these overwhelming emotions that would swallow me whole if I just opened up… But then you come and lift me up and carry me to a place where in the essence I can just be myself. Where two souls blend magnificently in an unrestricted flow of passion, understanding, feeling, acceptance, compassion and love… What incredible freedom!

Just hearing your voice fills my soul with thoughts of the essence of all existence, of creation and all eternity. Each breath brings renewed life to me and my heart swells with a warm glow from deep within. Inside of me I talk to you and it keeps me sane although it feels insane. At nights you come to me and hold me and I am not even sure whether I am awake or asleep. It is this closeness which sustains me through this void, this empty uncertainty of all that lies before me, yet to come.

You’ve triggered so many thoughts and aspirations which now arise within me that I never really thought about before. I have gone through every possible scenario with you over and over in my head. I ask myself who you are … a friend, lover, twin flame, future husband, soul mate, teacher, an angel? In my heart I know it doesn’t matter. From our first hypnotically momentous encounter to this day to forever, in you, I have found something so unique and miraculous, something that I should only want to set free.

If only circumstances would allow, I would say let’s spend all the days of our lives together, let’s build a home in the country, let’s build a family and rise in love hand in hand to heights that others have rarely even dreamed of. But I know that I cannot simply grant upon you such happiness; that such is a thing we can only do for ourselves. And I don’t want to claim ownership of this love because it does not belong to me.

I still fail a lot, think too much and do not listen to my inner self. I strive for fact and question feelings. Maybe a part of me lives in a dream world that only exists in my head. Maybe it is just a figment of my imagination. Or is it the only reality and everything else an illusion?

If it isn’t real, then neither am I. If it doesn’t truly exist, then there is no reason. There is no love.

It must be real. It is my life. It is my self.

It is the part of me that I have not yet become.

Love, J

As you lift your gaze up from her letter, the thumping sound of your heart beating in your ears is so loud that it drowns out the noise of the big city. Your chest feels tight as each in-breath becomes increasingly painful. You recognise every single word as if they were your own. She has just effortlessly, unassumingly revealed her soul and it is, as you always suspected, a perfect reflection of yours. She KNOWS you, to the core and you have no idea how you are going to handle this.

All the overwhelming feelings that you’ve tried to hide and deny rush to the surface all at once. They bring pain; relentless, soul-deep, shooting pain, like daggers aimed straight at your heart making you gasp for air. Is this a panic attack? You suddenly feel very faint. Everywhere hurts. You now wish you had at least returned upstairs to your apartment before reading her letter. Somehow you know you won’t be returning there today. As you struggle to catch your breath, it hits you that she will soon want to hear from you. The thought of articulating any sort of response to her letter paralyses you with fear. Your knees buckle from underneath you. You are simply not ready.