lovers who will never be

I was watching NCIS tonight and a thought struck me.  I don’t really know how accurate the thought is, but its got me thinking.  The episode had two characters, Thomas and Sati.  They were soulmates, married in their home country in Africa.  Thomas was able to escape to America, but Sati was not.  Within a year or so, Thomas had heard news of his village and all the inhabitants had been killed.  He believed Sati to be dead.  He grieved and then moved on, married another woman and had a daughter.  When Sati appears in his front yard, he tells her all this.  Sati is shocked and stunned, but in the end says she is so happy he survived and leaves in the car.  This scene takes place over about 90 seconds or so and comes at the end of the episode.  Its not a huge part of the story, and I think that is why it caught my attention.  Gave me some time to think about it.  It was clear Thomas still cared for Sati, never stopped loving her.  But he needed to live and move on.  For Sati, the hope that Thomas might still live is what kept her going.  Soulmates.  What a stupid little idea.

I wonder if soulmates could be better translated into "lovers who will never be."  I’ve never heard my mother refer to my father as her soulmate.  Not that she doesn’t have other disgustingly romantic names for him and vice versa, but soulmates just isn’t used.  When I think of Manny and I, I often think of the term soulmates.  Manny used to use the term "crossed souls."  We will always be somehow linked with each other in a way no one else can possibly understand.  In a way that will never be duplicated.  But we will never have a happily ever after ending.  Strangely enough, I feel like Sati to some extent.  I don’t need his love to survive.  I don’t really need him to survive.  But I need for him to survive.  In some regard, all I want is for him to be happy.  But thats too cheesy for me.  Too simple.  I don’t just want him to be happy.  I want him to live.  Really live.  I want him to have ups and downs, successes and failures, loves and losses.  I want him to live.

I’m still worried that someday, I will be standing in front of a wonderful, loving man – the perfect man for me.  And he will tell me that he feels he doesn’t have all of me.  That Manny has a part of me, and he cannot understand or have that part.  I’m afraid he will walk away and I’ll lose him.  But I would have no way to stop him.  No way to reassure him that is not true.  Because I do truly believe Manny and I are soulmates, crossed souls, lovers who will never be.  There are things about me that no other man, or woman for that matter, will understand, but that Manny does understand.  I know that there will be some things Mr. Perfect will not know or understand about me with regards to my family or my friends.  There’s too much history to really explain everything.  Just like there will be things about his family and friends that I will never know.  It comes from not spending every moment of our lives together.  We’ll both have a past apart from each other.  I’m not worried about his concerns with my friends, or my family.  But my relationship with Manny does worry me.

I know from the outside, we look like we would be the perfect couple.  We have a wonderful balance of teasing and poking fun with being kind and loving.  Those who don’t know the total why behind it, constantly ask if we are together and demand to know why not.  If they let go of the topic, it is always with a knowing look in their eye that says "you will get together, someday."  To the outside world, I don’t care.  They can think whatever they want.  But to my Mr. Perfect and to his Mrs. Perfect, I don’t want either of them thinking it.

Anyway my new definition for soulmates is "lovers who will never be."