Can you have two soul mates? No? Oh you know nothing. I have two. Two wonderful women. I doubt if they have ever met each other. I must ask them this. Oh briefly I think. Would they hit it off, like I do with them both? I wonder how the conversation between them would be. But put me in a room with either of them and I never want to leave. They aren’t similar though I could describe them in many similar ways. Smart, funny, intelligent, creative, huge animal lovers, feminist, loyal, energetic, beautiful both in and out, musical, well read and just plain lovely. But my conversations with both of them are vastly different. Though in both these relationships, there are hardly any topics not touched.
Where did I meet two such women you ask? Good question. Very pertinent too. Since context is everything. In a place that resembled hell. Yes. Both of them in the same place at different points in the same year. Oh! What a year it was. I went from love to love that year. Despite having sunk to new lows in my self esteem. But two of them were special. In ways in which I have never expressed to them, either. They got me through the year and more. If they are so similar, yet so different, why talk about them together? Well because in my life now they co-exist. The thought of seeing or spending long periods of time with either of them fills my heart with immense amount of joy. As one of them returns from a long sabbatical in a cold faraway land (no seriously!), I realised how much they both mean to me. How much I wish I lived in the same city as them. How much I want to see them immediately. Without even talking about my problems, they found ways to take it all away. Both of them in their own unique ways.
So let me tell you a little more about them. I can’t keep saying there is nothing like them and give you nothing to believe me.
One of them is a perfectionist and she reads a lot. Not like the normal a lot. A LOT. She devours books to say the least; small books, difficult books, fat books, easy books, children’s books, academic books, adult books. Not the books that you think should be called adult. I never asked her if she reads erotica. A conversation for next time.
The other one is passionate to the core. She is principled and very dedicated. She is not one to make compromises on those for she lives by them. We have had many a conversation on negotiating between choices and compromises; the boys we date; love, life and loss; and feminism in our lives.
When I break it up this way, I’m afraid I’m giving the impression that one is not passionate and the other doesn’t read. That is a faulty impression to be polite and completely wrong to be correct. But I am fully aware that no matter how hard I try, I cannot explain these relationships as well as I wish to. So permit me that flaw.
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My life would be a depressing place without them. I am sure everyone says that about their soul mates. My love life is a confusing place because of them. Not sure anyone says that about their soul mates. But I am pretty sure, despite the circumstances under which we met, I will be grateful to the closest to awful woman I have ever met for bringing these two into my life.
Yes. I have two soul mates. And I love them both similarly and very very differently.
Carpe Diem 