The word Soulmate, typically conjures up the Hollywood version of romance where after years of searching, someone finds “the one” and falls madly in love then they live happily ever after. The spiritual version of soulmates is a lot different. For starters, a soulmate is not necessarily a romantic interest. It is a person who you have a deep spiritual connection to. If you believe in reincarnation, a soulmate is one of many people who you have spent multiple lives in the company of. These are deep connections, but also, your soulmates are people who are incredibly challenging to you, meant to teach you deep lessons that will be beneficial to you as you move from lifetime to lifetime.
By this definition, Kody was a soulmate. From the moment we met each other, we clicked in a way that I rarely click with anyone. It was the feeling of recognizing an old friend. Choosing to be friends with Kody, to marry Kody, to live with Kody, was all so natural. We shared an incredibly deep bond and could get under the others skin in a way that no one else could. There has never been another person outside of my family that I could love so deeply and still be so incredibly mad at. This was why we joked about being brother and sister. We fought just like siblings.
He challenged me in a way that no one else has. At the same time he supported me in a way that was so incredibly important to this part of my life. I know that my growth as a human this go around has been exponentially more through my experiences with Kody. He taught me how to love someone despite a million faults and challenges. He showed me how to have fun and live in the moment. I also learned a million painful lessons about depression. I learned how our mental health system is increasingly and incredibly flawed. He taught me how difficult it could be to live with someone who didn’t want to live.
I am still learning from our relationship and its continually evolving pieces even now after he has gone before me. Learning to live without someone you love is an incredibly important lesson for the soul. It must be, or else these human bodies that we have taken would not experience so much grief. The fact of living is that there will be losses. We experience tragedies both big and small that teach us more about ourselves and the world around us. It is part of the human experience.
From the time that we are little, we experience loss be it the small losses like a balloon escaping into the void or the big ones like loosing a friend or a relative. It breaks my heart each time I see a child crying after a balloon gets away, for I know that they are often experiencing their first of many losses in this world. There is reason for these losses, even if we can’t see it at the time. There is a reason I have lost two of my soulmates, my mother and Kody in the same year. I don’t know what that reason is yet. But I know that I am growing and learning through these moments of loss. While it may not feel good, it is an important part of growth.