I can’t remember now all of the details of this chapter (as it’s been well over 5 years at this point)…but this is the exact time when I stopped writing this memoir. I could not for the life of me process Chapters 9 and 10 before now. I would not be able to write anything else either in the meantime…

I have one significant memory that occurred then outside of this relationship…I was working as an Editor of catalogs. I would be in a cubicle, in a basement for what felt like eternity…I wouldn’t be able to last much longer there as it was smothering my soul little by little each day.

One day there was a very bad accident on the main road outside of work. It would take hours to clean up the wreckage. An 18-year-old girl was presumably texting and swerved into a semi-truck. She was crushed and killed instantly.

People at work were in an uproar. Talking about how long it was going to take to get home now. How they wouldn’t have time to do their laundry for the next day or make the dinner they had planned. How people were such stupid drivers, etc…

A young woman had just lost her life. Someone had just lost their daughter, sister, friend…and we’re talking about the inconvenience of it? We’re condemning the drivers?

It was the first time I had ever really seen the insanity of humanity outside of myself. It hurt…as within, so without…

~

I remember in his message he wrote, “Maybe next lifetime?  I hope so…”  The thought of waiting another lifetime to be with the person I loved made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.  I think I said, “I don’t want to wait another lifetime.  Let’s have tea.”

And another big “first” happened for me…I showed up to a relationship with trust to give and with my eyes and heart wide open…ready to love…but alas (!), I, the Scarecrow, had forgotten my brain…again…

So, we had tea.  We were relieved and overjoyed to be back in each other’s arms, but so much had happened and there was much to talk about.  I had changed and I could tell right away that something was different in him too.  It was his eyes…something about them…instead of their normal flat dark brown, they were curiously lighter. There were golden striations that appeared almost shimmery, especially in candlelight. They reminded me of hawk eyes, and I told him…Henry eyes…

“The Hawk is special.  If you have this power animal, you need to be aware of and work toward fulfilling your soul’s destiny. Spiritual forces will be felt strong within you…”

We spoke of the past and how and why everything went down the way it did.  He told me of things in his childhood that geared him towards needing to be needed or needing to be the hero in a woman’s eyes.  That when my fear started pushing him away, it ignited a deep fear in him.  We talked about how important transparency would be moving forward and we were both happy to try again.  People can change, right?

Little by little, I began to try to explain to him what I had experienced in the time we were apart.  By then I had learned that a lot of people aren’t open to talking about spiritual things, so I was reluctant.  I kept saying, “You know I’m not crazy, right?  You know I’m not crazy, right?”

I eventually told him everything…what I had learned of twin flames, things I had learned about myself and him, how his life situation reflected back to me a brutal time in my life…a time that needed healing.  I told him that I had forgiven him, and I understood why he was doing the things he was doing.  We had many wonderful heart-to-heart conversations and experiences during this time…

I don’t know about him, but I felt like a little kid bursting with excitement to talk to him about everything!  My best friend was in front of me and there was finally nothing in between us.  It was Our Universe…and this was a place my soul couldn’t resist.

We talked about other things we did during the time we were apart.  We found out that we both got a tattoo at the same time on the same exact place on our bodies.  We had taken our kids to see the same movie at the exact same time just at different theaters…lots of weird things like this.  I told him about a dream I had of his children and how they were all alone in a house.  When I entered, they were reaching out to me, so I went to them.  We were all holding onto each other hugging for the rest of the dream…we didn’t want to let go, and it felt so real. 

We both had another impactful dream that was eerily similar…

The way I remember his is that it was nighttime, and the earth was covered in ash.  He had his kids in his car and they were racing to try to find my daughter and I.  He eventually found us parked on the side of the road.

In my dream, it was also nighttime.  There was ash so thick that it could have been mistaken for snow.  I can only describe it as how I would imagine the aftermath of a war.  I was alone on the ground when someone stumbled towards me.  It was his father, and he was all beat up.  He said somberly, “Sam, where have you been?  Where did you go?  Why did you leave us?  I’ve been looking for you.”   

There was one other particularly mind-blowing thing that happened that I’ll never forget…I was at home one night alone and I was meditating.  I imagined that he was next to me.  I had floated away to La La Land, but, somehow, he was there too.  He was holding my left hand.  I could feel it, but he was miles away.  I had no plan to speak to him of this.

I saw him the following night.  I could tell he had something to say but couldn’t quite get to it.  Eventually he said, “You came to see me last night.”  I don’t know that I said anything.  I was in shock.  He explained to me that he was laying on the couch and suddenly felt me beside him.  He felt a warm sensation on his right hand…

Later, we took the children to the cabin in the mountains.  We cooked and made some really good food. Took the kids sledding and made fires and ate s’mores.  It was a lot of fun and we shared some laughs. Though, in the background, it was still super intense, both in passion and in pain. 

I had this urgent fear for his children regarding their mother.  We were sitting in a screened-in room away from the kids and I told him.  The physical abuse had stopped as she was no longer their caregiver. I remember pointing out that anyone could and should protect them physically, even a stranger would do that. But who was going to protect them emotionally, mentally?  Who was going to protect them in the other ways that mattered?  If not him, then who?? I was crying…he was crying. 

I was free in one big and meaningful way, but I couldn’t break this parallel to his children and my brothers.  It made me feel it all so deeply and so desperately.  I loved them.  It’s one of the main reasons I kept going back. I wanted to save them…spare them the pain we had. And through him was the only way…

There was an opening in me, which did not exist at any other time in my life…an opening to listen and to understand and to forgive.  There was an opening in him too.  This I can only say was an actual miracle.

He made great strides…within himself, with his ex and working to build a relationship that would be healthy for both him and his kids and, therefore, us 5 as a unit…not using others as a distraction from himself…learning to be in his own skin and finding out who he was and what he should do with his life.

I made great strides too within myself and who I was becoming in the world…learning my inherent worth, unraveling the shadows of my inner and outer life, learning to be in my own skin…And ditto to figuring out what I was to do with this life and not using others as a distraction from myself.

I guess we were doing the same thing, huh?

And what can I say?  Only that it simply wasn’t time for us…the things we were trying to do were life changing, paradigm shifting, cycle breaking, big…big things and we had only just begun…these things take years, decades possibly, maybe even lifetimes…and we just couldn’t do it together.  It was too much. It wasn’t the way…

Besides, another tragedy was about to strike…