Soul Searching

by Kitty Tyler

So do you really believe in soulmates? Is there really ONE person out there meant for all of us or is that just a nice way of saying, "It’s not you - it’s fate." Who out there do we really consider "soulmates?" Romeo and Juliet come close. To me, the world just seems so big for there to be a single perfect person out there. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack and sometimes, the haystack seems infinite.
I think we are all guilty of stalking the "Single’s Safeway" and hunt hopelessly among a crowd of Capitol Hill suits wishing that one turns out to be the end to it all. It’s not that being wild and single isn’t a good time, it’s just the mystique of the "soulmate" that draws curious hearts out on the weekends in search of that one person that will complete the whole.
Society doesn’t help this pressure either. Every magazine cover and book stand contains some version of the "How To" list of ways to "meet your match". Movies, television and music all have serendipitous endings of lovers finding each other complete with eternal, fulfilled happiness. It’s a bittersweet feeling, watching, listening and reading these love stories. On one hand, you are given hope that you could be next - who’s to say you won’t stumble upon your true love in Starbucks next week? On the other hand, it also leaves that sour residue of how ordinary your own life seems. If everyone else is finding the love of their life, then what are you doing wrong? You go to all of the same places as those people, but nothing extraordinary happens when you go to them.
So is it possible to find one person out there who will complete your life? Or could it be that our ideas of the "soulmate" aren’t entirely correct?
After a streak of bad relationships and a week-long marathon of the Lifetime channel, a friend of mine came to a realization. She was spending so much time focusing on her one conventional "soulmate" that she was overlooking a few soulmates of her own. One night, she finally peeled herself off the couch after a three-hour original film and we met over some drinks in Dupont. She explained that she had been doing some thinking and was convinced that she had several soulmates - her mother, her sister, her chocolate lab, Abigail and her best friend from college. To her, all of these people were soulmates because without them, she would be missing irreplaceable pieces of her self.
Instead of allowing herself to be engulfed in self-pity on a daily basis, she now walks Abigail along the Potomac, or calls her mother for lunch whenever her soul begins feeling empty.
She is convinced that some day she will find a partner that will add to her soul, but for now, she is enjoying the friends and family that make her feel absolute. Maybe there is only one true soulmate out there for everyone and maybe you’ll meet them tomorrow buying produce or twenty years from now on a flight. Whether your soulmate is a single person or a handful of loved ones, no matter how we see it, true soulmates fill those missing pieces and make us whole