Soulmates

A wedding invitation received yesterday is very nearly enough to restore my faith in love and marriage and the  starry eyed notion that everyone has a soulmate.  I can't remember seeing two people closer or more committed or more dedicated to one another - they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle - and I was moved to tears by the prospect of seeing them marry.  

It was the second such invitation in less than a month and it makes me remember that there's something about weddings.....I think I like the idea if not the actuality, the romance if not the reality.... there's work involved in partnerships and only play in romance, kind of like the difference between poetry and prose.  But these two upcoming weddings will, I think, have the best of both.  If soulmates there be, they have found each other.

My soulmates all seem to have four feet and tails.  They don't bring much romance to the relationship but they love unconditionally and always soothe my troubled soul.  They take up less room in the bed, don't leave towels on the bathroom floor or expect me to cook, and never, ever wander or pick a fight.  They sense my emotions and bring comfort, comedy, or company as needed and while I don't admit it to everyone, I haven't the least doubt that they understand, reason, and feel - very much as I do.  I talk to them without the slightest sense of self consciousness and if one day one were to answer back, I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't give it a second thought.  I've been more than halfway expecting it my whole life.  A silly and uneducated notion, some say, a fantasy.  We believe what we believe because we need to or because it pleases us to do so.  Well, perhaps.  But, I remind myself, just because I can't prove that my animals have minds and hearts and souls and will all go to heaven in their own good time - doesn't mean that anyone can prove they don't.

Soulmates are for this life and, if you believe, for the one to follow.  So I will go to these weddings with a happy heart.  I'll celebrate whatever forces brought these friends together and trust in whatever powers will keep them together.  And then I'll come home to my own loves....'cause nothing says soulmates can't have four feet and tails.