8/10/18 Note: This was one of my early blog pieces, written in February of 2015. Somehow it dropped off the website, so I have reposted it to share my story in the hopes that it can help someone else who might be going through something similar.
It’s been ten weeks. Today. That’s 70 days. Or 1,680 hours. It’s time passing. Passing without him in my life. Ten long, painful, numb weeks and there is seemingly no relief in sight. My heart is in pieces, truly broken, scattered all around me and I can’t seem to figure out which piece to pick up first. Broken a third time. Worse this time. I’m grateful that the act of breathing in and out is involuntary. Or maybe I’m not grateful. I’m sometimes sad that I wake up each morning. Or maybe I’m just surprised. The pain I feel is so physical, tearing me apart over and over, that it will surely be my demise. But no, I open my eyes each day to the stark reality that for a moment, I had it all. I got a taste. I saw the vision of a lifetime of happiness, a future with the man I have loved longer then most people can say they have been married; loved in lifetimes past and will in lifetimes to come.
I was once again reunited with my twin flame.
What is a twin flame? “According to the mythology of twin flames, in the beginning of time we were created from one source, that was split into smaller and smaller units down to two souls (and on rare occasions, halves of one soul) that would journey to Earth to learn and experience duality. They would reincarnate over lifetimes with this longing for each other.” [2] (Source Wikipedia)
Simply put, a twin flame is your partner of ultimate destiny. How do I know that he is my twin flame? I just do. I can’t explain it. It’s a feeling. An overwhelming physical and spiritual pull. It’s my soul recognizing his soul and knowing I am home. It’s twenty-eight years of finding each other, over and over again, on this planet.
We met in high school, in the late 1980’s. He was dating a girl that would become his first wife and I was dating someone who I would never talk to again after we graduated. We all ran around in the same crowd, but my heart sang only for him.
After high school he would go on to join the military and turn it in to a successful career, achieving a respectable rank and the respect and adoration of his peers. He is currently active duty in the southern states.
His first marriage ended and produced two girls. By now, it was the early 1990’s. Not long after that, he came home to NY on vacation and we ran in to each other unexpectedly at a club. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect! We were both young and single, and so the romance began. My heart sang and sang and sang. He returned to Nebraska and we communicated the old fashion way, via telephone. The internet had yet to debut, but it was on it’s way.
Later on, in the spring he would come back to NY to visit his daughters and we spent an amazing several days together and decided I would come out to visit him during the summer. Back then, I wouldn’t even consider getting on a plane for any amount of money in the world, but for him, I would squash my anxiety (with the help of a few (many) Tanqueray and tonics) and get myself there.
It was another amazing week together and I already knew that I wanted to be with him, no matter where he was stationed on this big, ginormous planet. When I returned home from that visit, I brought this up to him, suggesting I could move to Nebraska. He wasn’t so hip to the idea and not long after that summer visit, he suddenly ended the relationship. I was devastated. I couldn’t understand where I went wrong. So, I did what any normal woman would do, I medicated with food and booze and denial. Imagine my absolute surprise and hope when he contacted me at Christmas that same year, saying he wanted to stop and see me while he was in NY visiting his family for the holiday. I couldn’t wait to see him. My love! I was so excited. I thought for sure he was coming to see me and tell me that he missed me. That he had made a mistake and wanted me back! Christmas wishes do come true!!!
It was snowing out that night. An absolute blizzard. He finally arrived. Standing in my kitchen right in front of me, my heart started singing again and then he said it, the words I never expected. He was there to tell me that he was getting married and oh, by the way, she was with him, in NY, waiting for him at his Mom’s house. My song stopped, because my heart skipped a beat, and all the while I’m dying inside. On the outside, I’m smiling and feigning happiness for him. What else could I do??? Merry Christmas.
He left and I sunk deeper in to my sadness. Wishing for a hole to open up in the floor and swallow me whole. I would later find out (in 2014 during a beach vacation together) that the reason he came back to see me was to make sure he no longer had feelings for me before he married his second wife. Ouch. And while he did still have feelings for me, his feelings for her were stronger. Ouch ouch.
But, life goes on and over time I healed and had a series of relationships, moved across the country to Washington State and returned home in the fall of 1998 to care for my Mom recovering post surgery. I would meet my husband later on in the winter of that same year, get married in 2000 and subsequently divorce several years later. My Mother would pass away in 2007, I would be diagnosed with a serious chronic and incurable illness in early 2008 and navigate learning how to manage doctors and medications and become a fierce advocate for my own health and those of the women I met also afflicted.
During all the years that followed that horrific December day in my kitchen, I would get updates from his first wife, who was working at a local pub that I played pool league out of. She would tell me how he was doing and how their two daughters were, but outside of those exchanges with her, me and him had zero communication. For seventeen years. Until the winter of 2009.
I arrived to work, turned my computer on and logged in to Facebook. Naturally.
There it was.
An instant message.
From him….
My heart again. My damn heart!!!! Humming at first. Oh so faintly. For him. Always.
I sit.
My palms are sweaty. My mouth is dry. We’re talking.
It’s like he was sitting right there with me.
I controlled my heart song this time though. I couldn’t let it sing too loudly. I had been hurt too deeply by him. Humming was tolerable. Humming was ok.
He told me he was deployed overseas, due to return to the states in April of 2010. He was divorced by now. With another daughter and stepchildren, one of which he would adopt after returning from deployment. An awesome, stand-up, seriously cool thing to do (coming from someone who is also adopted) and shows what kind of man he is!
We would talk virtually every day during the work week as he was winding down for the night and my day was just beginning. I was so grateful to have re-established contact with him. To know that he was alive and relatively safe given his deployment status. I let my heart song hum for him (it felt so good), but I was with someone and I couldn’t allow my heart to sing the way it truly wanted to. I owed it to the man I was dating at the time. Eventually that relationship ended though and it was now 2010. He suggested we see each other when he returned to NY in June for his daughters high school graduation. Yes. Yes! YES!
The day arrived. I could see him walking towards my building. My heart exploded. I came unglued. We were in front of each other. For the first time in over seventeen years! He wrapped his arms around me and held me so close that I could have practically been pulled inside him. It was absolute and sheer Heaven. He was home. I was home. We spent some time together over the weekend and it was bittersweet to say goodbye to him.
After he left we would continue to text and Skype just about every day. It was purely platonic (with a shitload of innocent flirting) as he was seeing someone back in Texas.
He ended up taking orders to Alabama for school and at the end of the summer I went to visit him. I arrived, not knowing how the visit would play out. There had been no discussion of the girlfriend in Texas he had mentioned earlier in the summer. I was going with the flow. Following my bag from the trunk of my car to the master bedroom. I had my answer and I was not disappointed. I was in love. My heart was singing at full blast. It was our second chance. We were older. Wiser. Experienced. Life was good. So good, that after that first visit to Alabama, he asked me to come back five weeks later for a long Columbus Day weekend. We would take a trip to Nashville. I would get on a plane for him. Again. Fighting all the fear and anxiety that was a hundred times worse by now, no thanks in part to my illness. But I would do it. Because he was worth it. Because I loved him.
We talked constantly during those five weeks, before I returned. It was pure agony to be away from him, but I had a job, great friends, my dog and a life in NY. I certainly wasn’t the least bit remotely interested in living in the “dirty south”, but I was interested in taking things slowly and cultivating the relationship.
When I returned to Alabama for our long weekend trip, I was acutely aware that something wasn’t quite right. He was different. Aloof. Not completely engaged. Not the guy I left five weeks earlier. During this visit I casually asked him to define what we were doing, where he saw things going for us. If we were going to continue a long distance relationship, then it would require some planning for travel and time off. I had responsibilities. But I also didn’t want to miss an opportunity in NY if he wasn’t interested in moving forward with us. Somehow he interpreted my inquiry as me wanting to pack my things, move in and play house. Uhhhh, yeah. No. Not even close! Needless to say, after the trip to Nashville and my return to NY, he pulled away again. Completely shut down. Shut me out. It was an ugly, messy split (for several very private reasons) and one that would take me almost two years to recover from. I would be forever changed after this break.
A year later, he would reach out to me and I would see him briefly in NYC for lunch while he was there for work and I was there to see my specialist. It was awkward. I wanted to be wrapped up in his arms, I wanted my heart to sing for his heart, but it couldn’t. It was in too much pain. I was in too much pain. He eventually moved on to Arizona after completing school. I would move forward too, changing careers and starting to make plans for a move to a warmer, more tropical climate. A couple times a year he would reach out to me, ask me how I was doing, inquire about my health, but it was never me reaching out to him.
And then one day, late in the summer of 2013, the phone rings (there’s a blog about that damn telephone on my page, just scroll down to read it; you’re welcome)….and I would make a decision that would impact my life in ways I could never imagine.
Almost exactly three years to the day after our second break-up that essentially destroyed me, we are in Baltimore; he whispers to me… in a dark room, “it’s you, it’s always been you, I keep coming back to you”… and my soul responds… “yes”, because I know with all the fibers that tie me together, that I am meant for him. That I am his. Can you hear that? It’s my heart…it’s singing again. I am his. He is mine.
In June of 2014, after seven months of dating, 20,000 miles of driving up and down the I-95 corridor, two shoulder surgeries for him and a few seizures for me, I got a job and an apartment, said goodbye to NY and hello to VA. It was the beginning of what I knew would be a lifetime of happiness. We had arrived. We were older. There were marriages for each of us. Children and grandchildren for him. The loss of my Mother and me living with chronic illness. Serious life experiences that shaped us, molded us, and led us to this moment. Both of us in our mid-forties. Very similar values and outlooks. So many things in common. Great conversations and beautiful, comfortable periods of silence. We would talk of our future together in San Antonio and the surgery that was coming at me, and ultimately the discovery of thyroid cancer would present.
He whispers….”I will heal you with my love”…and I believe him.
It wasn’t a smooth transition, moving from NY to VA. There were moments, from both of us, that certainly weren’t pretty, but I never saw them as things that would be used as a reason to end the relationship. I always took accountability for my actions, but in my error, I took accountability for his actions too.
During this time, leading up to my surgery in October, things started presenting that made me uncomfortable. Changes in his behavior. My anxiety became uncontrollable. I had valid reasons to feel the way I felt that would later be confirmed through fights and emails I would read confirming my suspicions. Things I never expected to find out, but even those things can’t quiet my heart song for him.
When we are intimate, he whispers to me….”mine”…and my soul breathes “yours”…
And so, despite the few hiccups early on, we established a comfortable routine. Cooking and exercising together. Taking walks to get coffee. Going in to the District and checking out museums. Sushi dates at our favorite place. Friday night movie date nights. Church and food shopping on Sundays. At night, he would sit next to me on the couch and lay his head in my lap and I would lovingly stroke his neck and back as he fell to sleep. His breath slowing until I could barely hear it. The warmth of his body being absorbed in to mine. Those moments so precious to me. I would fight for us. Always. I would never give up on him.
Every now and then he would show me glimpses of his vulnerability. Who he was underneath all the layers of shit that affected him, shaped him, warped him, wrecked him – for all women…except me. Why? How do I know? Because he is my twin flame. We are connected by something legitimately unexplainable. Something that scares most twin flames who are not comfortable being vulnerable and open and exposed. It scares him for sure, but it doesn’t scare me. Because despite all the bullshit. All the excuses. Everything we have been through together, and apart. His flaws, my flaws. None of it matters. Nothing. I love him. Through it. Because of it. I. Just. Love. Him!
I see him. The real him. I see the man he wants to be. I don’t want to save him. I don’t need to save him. I only want to love him and let that love be the song that is his lullaby. My hope is that one day he will see himself as I do. He will see that he has value, and worth. He will know that he doesn’t need to run anymore. He will know that he is safe with me and that I love all of him.
Because I want nothing from him except him. I have never wanted his money, or needed his last name, or for him to shower me with material things and trinkets. My happiness comes and I’m lit up like a flame when he slides his hand in mine, or when we are in a crowd and he places his hand on the small of my back, and even when his hand doesn’t make contact I can feel the electricity connecting us. It’s when he looks at me so deeply it rocks my core, or when he playfully teases me while I’m washing dishes or cooking dinner.
When I’m inside his embrace, held tight by his strong arms, I’m protected against the ugliness out in the world. Protected from the pain of my illness Feeling his strength and love envelope me. Ooze in to me. He held me like that almost every single night, my soldier.
I’m filled with immense pride when he champions me in my quest of health, fitness and wellness, or advocating for others affected with illness. I’m moved by his generosity towards the people I love so much. My family. My friends. My clients. They love him. Even more, they too can see this connection we share, because it’s undeniable.
I’m amazed by complete strangers watching us on the metro. A woman, who gently reaches out and touches my shoulder and says, “I need to tell you that I have been watching you two for the last 20 minutes and I can’t help but notice how much in love you are with each other”. Whoa! He asks me what she said and I repeat it.
He whispers… “see, don’t ever doubt my love for you”.
It’s October, my surgery has arrived and so has our anniversary. It’s our official “one year” 28th anniversary. It’s the first and last we will celebrate together. The blue box arrives….
When I open it I completely lose my breath. It’s like I got punched in the throat. I recognize the Twin Flame symbol immediately. I ask him if he is aware of what it stands for and he says he does, but I’m not so sure he is aware of how intuitive and connected he is to our twin flame, since he’s pretty good at turning his feelings off and avoiding. I’m somewhat doubtful that he gets the significance of his choice, but it’s powerful none the less. I wear that beautiful bauble with pride. Unaware that the tides will soon be changing.
Despite setbacks, cruel words between us and growing pains, I never gave up on him, but believed more and more that I was made for this man who is so boyish and so incredibly lost in so many ways.
Before I know it, it’s December and we are in NYC to see the tree a week before Christmas. During this trip he tells me he loves me, but he isn’t in love with me. Thanks for the food Ruby Foos, I will never go back again.
We go our seperate ways to celebrate the holiday. Him to San Antonio and me to Florida. And then it’s December 30th, 2014. I’ve just returned home. Against everything inside me, I choose to end the relationship because I feel like something is terribly wrong and I have to save what is left of myself, because I’m ready to let him destroy me…again. For a third time.
We’re sitting on the couch and I turn to him and say, “Don’t you think I deserve to be with someone who loves me back the way I love them”? and he agrees. I’m crying. I can’t stop the tears. My heart is dying…I can feel it, shrinking in my chest. Suffocating my song. I want to change my mind. I want to say I was just kidding! But I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m shutting down. Trying to prevent the inevitable. To beat the pain before it reduces me to nothing. To get in front of it and pretend this moment isn’t even happening.
He kneels in front of me, wraps his arms around my waist and puts his head in my lap. It’s the most glorious feeling to hold him close and stroke his skin, because it’s the first touch we have shared since I returned from Florida. To share this tender, sweet moment with him as my world is falling apart, it’s catastrophic for my soul.
He lifts his head from my lap…he whispers to me, “I’m glad it was you this time”.
I’m done. My world is spiraling. I can truly feel the bottom slipping away, the fall is happening. My stomach in my throat. Knowing that when I wake up in the morning it will all be changed. I’m inconsolable.
He leads me to the bedroom. We make love. I cry the whole time. A snotty, salty mess and when we are done, he gathers me in his arms, pulls me super close in to his body, as he’s done every night for the last seven months. Our bodies, that fit perfectly together. Because I was designed for him and he was designed for me.
He whispers…”don’t think I’m not losing something I want too”…my head is spinning and I can’t even respond. In my brain, I hear my voice screaming, “then why are you letting this happen!!!!!”.
I wake up a few hours later to train my client before she leaves for her New Year festivities. When I return home I’m exhausted and need sleep before I too leave for NY for the holiday. Only I sleep too long, and when I wake up he wants to talk. The man who virtually never initiates any sort of “talks” or “talking”. He says, maybe when I come back from NY we can work on the relationship, and my heart starts singing again. Because I think, he’s finally getting it! He’s here! He’s vulnerable. He’s ready to move forward and get all the way in. I agree and decide to stay and celebrate New Years Eve with him and his friends.
Just like that, I’m renewed and refreshed, full of hope and faith and excitement… and (sigh) love. My heart has never sung so loud and his is answering mine back. We’re going to make it!
(Ernie and me – NYE 2014/15)
I look at this picture and I know, you can’t fake happiness. You can’t fake love. You can’t fake desire and you certainly can’t fake body language. I am his. He is mine. My soul is pulled to his and I am home when I’m with him. Twin flames.
http://www.twinflamesoulmates.com/twin-flame-signs.html
Forty days later, he would end our relationship. He receives official orders for an early release to return to San Antonio. He declares that we just aren’t compatible, we have nothing in common, and that while we function great in a domestic capacity within the walls of our apartment, we don’t function well in a group dynamic in public. He complains that our relationship has been riddled with drama and he won’t take a struggling relationship to TX and force it on his children.
I’m leveled. Blindsided. I had believed we were on our way to taking things higher. That he was committed to moving forward. And just like that, he’s gone. Checks out. Buh bye. I tell him how hard it was for me to make the choice to end the relationship back in December and he pulled me back in the very next day. Why? Why would he do that? When I asked him why he did that…he said he didn’t know. He couldn’t answer that question.
Everything I believed and hoped for is crushed. Ripped away from me. I spend the weekend in a fog. Crying. Crying so much I’m amazed there is any salt left in my body. And he’s loving me. Holding me. Kissing me. Taking me to dinner at our favorite sushi place, then going out to party in the District with his “boys”; and I’m sobbing in our bed, medicating just to get some sleep.
I’m trying to figure out why I didn’t see the blow coming. Wondering where I went wrong. What did I do wrong? I know that when I leave, all ties have to be severed. Like we never knew each other. We never met. Not ever. But, if you’ve been lucky enough to identify your twin flame and actually connect with them, then you know this approach is fruitless.
I return to New York, with just a few boxes of clothes, personal belongings and my bicycles. My heart hanging out of my chest, useless. A lump of scar tissue. No pride left. No energy. I’m void. It’s all gone. No idea what I’m going to do or where I will go. I have nothing left. My savings is depleted. Most of my life is packed in to a 5×10 storage unit on the side of I-395 next to the Pentagon. The only place I want to be is with him. The only place I am is in agony.
For ten weeks now, I have lived in a perpetual state of loss. I can’t see past the pain and sadness I feel every day. The lump in my throat is always there. I cry. In the car. In front of my friends. At church. But the worst, the worst is in the shower. When it just washes over me. Gut wrenching, torturous, breath stealing, murderous sobs, that wrack my body.
I have never known a sorrow so deep, so dark, so painful, so incredibly profound. I look down at my body and see all the places his eyes once touched me and my soul aches for him. I feel all the places his hands used to touch me and my skin is lit on fire. I see the water rushing over my body that he once held so close and tight to his each night. Two puzzle pieces that fit together as one. Perfectly.
I hardly know myself anymore. The woman looking back at me in the mirror is a complete stranger. She’s lifeless. She has lost her joy. She has lost her direction. Her heart, although not silent, is barely humming now.
I go through the motions. I get up. I do my best and I wait for the end of the day.
The pain of separation that a twin flame feels is excruciating and unexplainable to others. It’s pure agony. It’s physical and spiritual all at once. Legit.
Reading this article may help to shed some light for those who can’t wrap their heads around the pain I am feeling, it certainly helped me to understand better:
My close friends and family stand by and witness my break-down. They feel immense pain for me. They so desperately want to help, they want to take my pain and sadness from me, but they don’t know how. I don’t either, and all I want to do is console them, assure them they will be ok, and not to worry about me.
I feel awful to be an emotional wreckage tossed in their laps. To see their sadness for my sorrow. I know how incredibly hard it is to watch people you love come completely undone, because I’ve been on those sidelines too. The helplessness is suffocating. You want to feel anger and hate for the person that did this to someone you love, but you can’t. And you shouldn’t, because I can’t feel that for him. Ever. All I can feel for him is love.
To all my dear friends and family, to all those who have been silently praying for me and wrapping me close to their hearts as they send healing energy to me, I’m so very thankful and blessed to have each and every one of you in my life.
To my family, who has walked each step of this journey with me, I love you all so much.
To the woman who has provided me with shelter and poured her light in to me so desperately, wishing for my joy and happiness to return, I am eternally grateful and indebted to you. You have nurtured me and loved me in a way I couldn’t have expected and in which I will never forget. Thank you for honoring me and the place I’m in. For sitting with me in church and for letting me sob silently as you pass your energy to me. Who just this morning shared this message (below) with me. A true angel on this earth.
Twin flames. We love who we love, unabashedly and without excuses, with complete and total abandon.
Every day I pray for him. I pray for me. I pray for us. He is my mirror. My forever love song. I whisper to him, “I am completely incomplete without you”…
…and every night…I whisper to an empty space beside me…
…I love you.
Until next time…
Love, Jeni
Love, Jeni 