With my brother all better for now and my dearest friends gone, I was lonely.  I was longing for something that felt glaringly missing in my life…connection…deep connection. 

I was helping women in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was open to people in life, at least I tried to be.  Though, I know one thing to be true about myself regarding relationships, I don’t trust easily.  I tend to keep people at a safe distance.  This I know.  I didn’t really want that anymore, but I learned that many people do tend to prefer the puddle to the ocean.  I was yearning for depth, for meaning, for someone that understood me. 

True, raw, naked connection is so rare.  It’s almost like magic, you know?  When two people can come together, both having willingness and interest and pure intentions at the exact same time…aligning like the stars that make up a constellation.  Like what I had with Betsy and what I had with him when he was there…

I was still looking outside of myself unconsciously.  Though when I compare myself to myself, which is the only true comparison, I had come such a very long way from that 19-year-old girl scared and running from everything…people, emotions, life in general.  I wasn’t looking recklessly anymore.  I wasn’t on dating sites or settling for people I didn’t belong with.  I wasn’t scared anymore either, but anytime I looked outside of myself, I was wrong.  Automatically.  Still, there was progress and that’s the whole point.

For 3 years, I was single, and it hadn’t occurred to me once to reach out to him.  I was strolling through life, rolling with the punches.  Learning about allowing…allowing life to happen, allowing myself to love people, allowing people to get sick, allowing them to leave, allowing emotion to come and then go…giving up resistance.

The day I reached out to him, I promise you, there was no thought behind it.  There was no plan.  Perhaps that was a mistake or perhaps it was just the way.  There were no expectations or hoping for a response.  I followed a spontaneous urge to reach someone that I knew got me in a way that no other person alive did.  I had no idea what he was doing in life or even if he was with someone else.  I didn’t think about that.

I sent him an email.  I told him that I wasn’t sure why I was writing him, that I was just following the urge I felt.  I told him about some of the highlights of my life in the time we were apart:  my older brother and I getting closer, my dog Orion dying, John dying, my new nephew that I adored and dreamt of before he even existed, my career changes, that I met so many people I was meant to meet and learned so many lessons. 

He responded shortly later, “Hello love :)”

I cried.

I guess we spoke on the phone and then he came over some days after.  He seemed so happy to see me and so open.  Honestly, I was still shocked at myself for reaching out.  Now I had to catch up to my actions.  Why did I reach out to him?  What did I want with him?  I didn’t know.  I actually wasn’t super happy to see him.  I was confused…head versus heart.  I had to take my brain with me this time (on purpose!).  That was not natural for me when it came to this individual.  It was the instinct of my soul to blindly follow my heart, but I had paid a price for doing that with him before and I wasn’t willing to pay that price again.  Plus, my daughter was older now.  She would be watching my every move and that mattered to me greatly.

He told me that he too had a new career path and that he was going to school to further that path.  He was heading in a new direction in every way it seemed.  He was still making regular attendance at meetings, but was also doing some additional things, physical things that helped him in other ways.  He said that he hadn’t been with anyone else in the years we were apart.  He purposefully walked alone, knowing that he had some work to do on himself.  Secretly hoping that I would join him, yet again, somewhere along the way…

I made it very clear once more that infidelity and dishonesty regarding other women was a deal breaker.  Never did I or would I say that he couldn’t have female friends, just that it was important for it to be out in the open.  I had some male friends (appropriate ones), and I was honest with him about that from day one. I didn’t ask for anything that I wasn’t capable of giving him in return. He assured me that he had no one in his life to speak of and if that changed, he would tell me. 

Somewhere along the line, I had come across this idea of “conscious relationships.”  A relationship where each person is committed to their own growth.  Together, there is a sense of purpose and expansion bigger than the individual…an ideal allowing sovereignty and the freedom dreams are made of!

We talked extensively about how necessary it was for each of us to take care of ourselves first and how the outcome of our relationship depended on it.  We were going to build a whole new foundation.  We both agreed to take it very, very slow…and out the window with logic (I thumb my nose at thee logic!!)!

The first time I went to his house, I purposefully went late, after his kids would be in bed.  But they got up and saw me.  One was half trying to hide, looking around the corner.  And I couldn’t help it, as soon as we saw each other, the tears just came.  I had missed them so much!  Through the years, I tried to suppress it, but now the pent-up love just seeped from my eyes.  It was so good to see them, to hug them.  They were becoming little men.  They had changed in other big ways too. It was immediately evident. 

The one who was hard with such anger, was soft and sweet and fun-loving.  The way a kid should be. The other was so happy and so free!  My love was doing an extraordinary job as a father. He must have been.

The words to describe seeing these boys and how they had changed escape me…but it was kind of like seeing an alcoholic come into AA beaten down and lost, then watching them stay sober and do the things we’re “supposed” to do…how they come alive and suddenly anything is possible!  Wonderful, amazing, miraculous!  Just ALL the good feelings.

We talked about the idea of “twin flames”…agreeing that the words themselves were insignificant.  In spite of what we were to each other, it mattered that as individuals we were doing the inner work.  We learned that only that would present the circumstances necessary for our outer worlds to come together in a meaningful way.  And that was what we both wanted…

So, we set out on this new mission.  However, when we threw out the label “twin flames,” we also threw out some very crucial pieces of information that we should’ve known we would have needed…our whole basis for coming together in the first place and continuously coming back to one another, was founded primarily on a spiritual connection…

With the absolute best of intentions, we paved the road…