Maybe you don’t end up with your soulmate. Maybe that isn’t how love’s spell works after all. Maybe, however hard it may be to accept, forever just wasn’t meant to be for the two of you. Maybe it wasn’t your life path, your destiny, it wasn’t what God had written into his plan.

Maybe your soulmate came to you at a certain difficult point in both of your lives, so that you could feel and walk through the fire of life together, hand in hand, soul to soul, heart to heart, and then walk in separate directions once the flames had stopped their burning, their licking, their envelopment of your souls in quite such a violent affliction. 

Maybe your soulmate came to you to awaken you to the extent of the depths of your own heart, to which you were previously unaware. To open you up to the possibility of what love can be, how real and authentic compatibility can feel, to shake you to your very core and remain firmly imprinted within your heart forever, so that you don’t ever make compromises on such things again. Maybe your soulmate came to you to show you that love and friendship should always coexist. Maybe your soulmate came to you to show you that you should be able to talk and laugh for hours and days and weeks on end with your partner without getting bored.  Maybe they came to you to teach you just how much love you are capable of giving, and how much you therefore deserve to receive in return.

Maybe your soulmate came to you to rip apart the fabrics and fibres of your very being in a way that nobody else could have done, because you never let anyone else see you up close, unmasked, like that before. Perhaps no one ever saw you before, at all. Maybe your soulmate came to you to teach you that you can truly bear everything… EVERYTHING… All of your madness, things you are ashamed of, your darkest of dark thoughts, your insecurities and your self-hatred and your struggles and your resentments to another being, and be loved, cherished and adored wholeheartedly and completely, regardless.

Maybe your soulmate came to you to rock your world, to shake you, to break you, to inspire you and to encourage you to be everything you ever dreamt of being, but thought you never could. Maybe your soulmate came to you to poke and prod and push you to break free of the shackles of routine and discover hidden talents, or to harness those that weren’t so hidden, but lay dormant and ignored nonetheless.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that society’s rules about love and relationships should be ripped up and thrown out of the window. That baring your soul, saying ‘I love you’ first, making the first move or expressing your feelings early on, even when doing so fills you with fear and hesitation, is a powerful and courageous act of both vulnerability and strength. That being the one who is vocal about wanting to hold on to a relationship while the other wants to let go, is not a symbol of weakness or rejection ora loss of power, it is symbolic simply of love.

Maybe your soulmate came to you to test you. To illuminate in the brightest, most dazzling, most unignorable light the areas in your life where you were slacking, where you had gotten comfortable, were not pushing yourself or had fallen into a routine and a way of life that did not serve your highest potential and purpose. Maybe they came to challenge you to step up and be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be. Maybe they needed to be able to see right through you as if you were transparent in order to do this. Maybe they served you up a big spoonful of bitter-tasting tough love. Maybe their words weren’t so kind or well-planned out or well-received, but maybe this made their impact all the more strong, catalysing your desire for exponential growth and expansion into all that you can be. Maybe your soulmate came to you to challenge you, to turn you upside down, to break you, to inspire you and encourage you to be everything you ever dreamt of being, but thought you never could.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you the sad and difficult lesson that all loves are not equal. That love, like our world that is permeated by countless tributes, odes and commemorations to and of it, is not always fair, not always kind, and not always what we wanted. Maybe they came to teach you that despite not being what we wanted, in the end, some loves can still last a lifetime, and we may always compare other loves to them.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that love is nothing if it is not dynamic. Love can change. Love can grow, love can evolve and love can transform. Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that, sadly, just as quickly as it cascaded into our hearts like the ocean waves upon the shore, love can make just as much of a swift and abrupt departure. Maybe they came to demonstrate the Universal principle of Yin and Yang in action. Maybe they came to you to teach you that everything that brings you great joy in life, will, eventually, bring suffering, too, but that it is our reaction to and identification with that suffering that determines the extent to which it can make or break us.

Maybe your soulmate came to you and then left you so suddenly, unexpectedly, and your world comes falling down in one gargantuan cataclysm and you are left with nothing but the thousand, tiny, fragmented pieces of your shattered heart and absolutely no idea how to piece them together again. Maybe they came to teach you that you will find out how anyway, eventually, with time.

Or maybe your soulmate came to you and their departure was slower, more subtle, more drawn out and more painful than most. Maybe your soulmate came to you, and then left you, and then returned again and came back and returned and came back and returned once again and then finally left when neither of you could take anymore of the agony and it was finally time to do the difficult thing and walk in opposite directions.

Maybe your soulmate came to you to teach you that your brave, brave soul can withstand even more than you thought it could. Maybe they came to show you that just when everything was falling apart and crumbling around you and you thought you would break and wither and die, you didn’t. Just when you thought you couldn’t get up and live through another day of pain, you did.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that through the bittersweet medium of the hardest and most painful goodbye of all, you could say hello to your highest potential and divine calling. Maybe your soulmate came to you to show you that sometimes walking away is truly the most loving thing that you can do for someone. Maybe your soulmate came to show you that you can walk away from someone but still love them just as much as you ever did anyway.

Maybe they came to show you that just when everything was falling apart and crumbling around you and you thought you would break and wither and die, you didn’t.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that your memories can set you free or keep you prisoner, but they will always be yours to keep. Maybe they came to teach you that memories can pop up in the most mundane and unexpected of places. The fruit and vegetable aisle of a supermarket where they surprised you by grabbing you around the waist from behind, the set of traffic lights where they turned around and grabbed your face and kissed you, the car park where you uttered your first spoken words to each other, the private jokes that had your sides aching with laughter for hours, again and again and again, or something as trivial as one of their hairs underneath your bed, months after they last lay their head inside of it to sleep. Maybe they came to teach you that these memories can keep you lingering in the bittersweet pain of reminiscence and you can replay them over and over again, tourturing yourself. OR you can let the memories come, smile at them, laugh because of them, be grateful for all that they gifted you with, and let them go without lingering there for too long.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that some loves really do last a lifetime, just not in the way in which society has taught us they do. Maybe your soulmate came to show you that someone can come crash landing suddenly and unexpectedly into your world like an airplane through your bedroom window. That they can love you full force like a swirling tornado for a short period, rewriting, redefining and reconfiguring your ideas and fantasies about love and relationships, and that love will linger, etched deeply into the farthest corners of your heart for the rest of your life, for years after the tornado faded to a gentle breeze.

Maybe your soulmate came to show you that love is not measured by time – but by potency of feelings and shared experiences. Maybe they came to show and experience with and through you in four life-changing months, that which other couples do not experience in as many years.

Maybe your soulmate came to teach you that the heart has reasons for that which reason alone cannot even begin to comprehend. Maybe they came to teach you that you don’t always get to know ‘why’ things are the way they are. They just are, and you just get to choose between fighting them or accepting them.

Maybe your soul mate came to teach you that a breakup doesn’t always have to be the end of the road. Maybe you can still love one another, share moments together, help one another out when needed without a second thought, experience real, deep and true, long lasting friendship, be vulnerable with one another, reminisce about the good times and shed tears together over the fact that the relationship that you both hoped would work, didn’t.

Maybe you don’t end up with your soul mate. But maybe that isn’t what matters the most after all.