[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Gemme

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My best friend growing up was a soul mate. We're not in touch anymore but she left an indelible mark on me and, during some really rough times, she supported and loved me without effort and thought. It just was. Without it and without her, I would have been lost.

I haven't been able to duplicate that feeling with a romantic partner but that's okay. I'm lucky to have experienced it once.

It's been a few years and some things have changed for me. One, my childhood bestie and I have reconnected and it's really nice to check in with one another again. Also, I found a later in life bestie who feels very similar to my childhood bestie even though she's young enough to be my child. Maybe she fulfills the wild, ride or die friend the girl in me always wanted. Either way, I'm so lucky to have these ladies in my life, even if it's from afar. They are invaluable sources of levity and therapy for my currently extremely stressful and chaotic life and match perfectly to very different facets of myself.

Looking back, and if I'm being brutally honest with myself, I had stronger connections with one of my dogs and four of my cats than I did with most other human beings (the two besties excluded). Romantically, I've truly loved and been loved back, but none of those relationships reached the same level of connection that I associate with a soul connection, although at the time, I felt differently. Hindsight is absolutely 20/20.

So, do soulmates exist? Sure, why not. I believe that soul connections exist, so why can't there be a match of some sort floating around this Universe? It doesn't mean that these connections will come through in the manner you might expect though.

When I remember feeling all the things that I attach to the sentiment of a soulmate....feeling safe...important...respected...wanted (not sexually)...cared for....loved...I think of my friend taking me in after my miscarriage and marriage fell apart...of my friend showing up unannounced with a plate of food on a holiday even though I turned down her invite because I was really struggling with--everything--and didn't want to have to put on a happy face for her family...of my beloved Brodie, whose favorite thing was when I walked around holding him like a baby (miniature Irish Setter who'd place his paws around my waist and under my arms and then close his eyes and rest his head on my shoulder and sigh like he was fully content...and then there are my felines....two girls and two boys...so many snuggly, loving memories of them but I used to wonder if my last boy, Loki, was Brodie reincarnated. The way he'd look at me like I was the best thing in this world and his need to be as close to me as possible just like Brodie did made that thought cross my mind many a night.

If one doesn't get hung up on the image that the media portrays as what a soulmate is or is not, I believe that we all have had a person or a creature at one point or another that made us feel all the things one might associate with soulmates. It just depends on the lens that you are looking through, I suppose.