Soulmate

A friend asked me if I have met my soulmate. That’s not a term I use. It’s really one of those goofy new age mystical terms people throw around with minimal thought behind it. My girlfriend and I have a working relationship. It works. It works for me, it works for her. It works. And it will continue to work until it stops working. When it stops working, we will acknowledge that, and decide on an appropriate move. I think when people use a term like soulmate, one of the things they mean by it is a relationship that will last until death. I think that’s reasonable to expect if someone doesn’t anticipate changing very much over the course of one’s life. True, most people don’t change very much after age 21 or so. If someone doesn’t anticipate changing very much, predicting that a relationship will work for a large stretch of one’s lifespan is reasonable. But if one is changing, growing, expanding, developing, becoming… gaining and losing attitudes, interests, energies… well, then predicting long-term attachments gets a bit dicier. There’s no guarantees for anything in life, of course. I have no expectation that our relationship will last the rest of our lives. Perhaps it will. Perhaps it will end next week. Who knows what the future holds. I guess we’ll see. I like being with her. She likes being with me. It’s a working relationship. If someone wants to apply the term soulmate to that, well, I won’t stop them.

Cartoon! ☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

Before you speak, stop, breathe, and consider if what you are about to say will improve upon the silence.

- Allan Lokos