A Constellation of Soulmates

Hi Friends!

Lately I have been thinking about soulmates. About what they are, who they are, and how they shape us in this lifetime and the next.

Finding one puzzle piece in a sea of millions of people to complete your puzzle feels daunting and almost scary to me.

To be clear, I LOVE Mr. Walsh. I couldn’t imagine a life partner other than him. But to say one soulmate per person, almost discounts how much I love other people in my life. There are multiple people who have come in and out of my life who have left marks on my soul.

This is a first time for me, I have been working on a poem about soulmates. So please let me leave you with this new piece today:

A Constellation of Soulmates

I don't believe in one soulmate.

I think that's too much pressure to place on a single human being—to ask one person to be our greatest love, our closest friend, our fiercest advocate, our mirror, our teacher, our adventure partner, our safe place, and our reason for becoming.

Instead, I think we collect soulmates throughout our lives.

The friend who teaches us that chosen family is just as real as the family we inherit.

The partner who shows us that love can be steady and kind.

The mentor who sees something in us before we can recognize it ourselves.

The person who breaks our heart and, in doing so, teaches us what we deserve.

The stranger whose brief kindness arrives at exactly the right moment.

I don't think soulmates complete us, because I don't believe we begin incomplete.

I think they expand us.

They introduce us to new ways of seeing the world. They challenge us. Comfort us. Delight us. They become part of the story we tell about who we are and how we got here.

Some remain for a lifetime. Others stay only for a chapter.

Neither is a failure.

The length of a relationship has never been the sole measure of its significance.

There are people I have loved for decades and people I knew for only a season who changed me just as profoundly.

Perhaps the purpose of a soulmate isn't permanence.

Perhaps it is transformation.

To encounter another person and leave them a little braver, a little softer, a little more themselves than they were before.

And to allow yourself to be changed in return.

So no, I don't believe in one soulmate.

I believe in a constellation of them.

People who, throughout our lives, help us become who we were always capable of being.

And what a gift it is to have been loved by so many stars.