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Kahuna + Akua = a Grand Love Story
About a year ago, my soulmate and I made special love names for each other. We actually did research on this. We looked at sites filled with love nicknames. We looked at sites filled with names from other countries and other traditions. Finally we found the right names. Akua = spirit, goddess. Kahuna = wise man or shaman. I think we are still claiming the full power of our names. But I look at my soulmate and I see Kahuna, even if he does not see it fully himself. This is what happened. I got cancer. I thought it healed. It didn’t and came back. Far, far worse. Terminal. And…
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Mrs. Splashy
Yes, I am 5 years old. Apparently I sometimes like to be exuberant with water. I notice this most when doing the dishes (he is The Chef and I am The Dishwasher, an arrangement that pleases me greatly) and I come away from the sink with the front of my shirt all wet. I didn’t used to be that way. Once I lived with a man who was horribly splashy. In hotels, I’d dive into the bathroom first and shower, neatly toweling off before stepping on the bathmat, so I could avoid the Tsunami Aftermath of that man’s showers. I hate stepping on wet floors in socks. Another man was…
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Sailing
I am sad and angry and scared. There is this situation. It is pretty dire, the down-to-the-wire kind of thing that has major consequences unless some big changes are made and made fast. I wish I could say more but I’m not willing to. (hint: it’s financial) The problem is my soulmate. He is not the problem. The problem is me. I am not the problem. The problem is that putting attention on fixing the dire situation has meant some radical shifts between us. It’s those shifts that have me feeling so sad and angry and scared. What do you do when the person you love most in the world…
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Exponential
It was about a year ago that the S-word was first used. Back then, it was under influence of a glass of red wine, or two glasses. I knew what was going on and let it unfold. Give it space. Let it breathe. If you are lucky, it will blossom. He needed time to feel that this amazing thing between us is real, that he didn’t just dream up the woman who loves him, and that he and I will be together in years to come, and more years, and more. It’s hard to remember exactly how it felt a year ago, light-years now, because now is now. Today we sat…
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Crystal Ball
The things I saw and heard in my head just about 18 months ago have all come true except one. That last foretold possibility may take years and years to see fully through. I am okay with that. Last night there was an eclipse. It was cloudy and we couldn’t see anything, but the quality of the light changed. Later, Soulmate and I sat on his bed, wine glasses nearly empty, a DVD paused in mid-flight, and we talked about the eclipse. I remember the last time this happened, I said. 1994. I was in Pittsburgh. I was driving to my office and hurried when the light in the sky…
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One
One year ago today, my life changed. It happened in the evening. I was in Houston where a client had flown me to work with her and her clients for a week, Houston where it was still summer and still humid. I was in Houston still processing the recent formality to the inevitable slow painful unraveling of the previous three-plus years spent with a boy-man that morphed into ten teary shower minutes feeling what it might be like to be me if I had always felt loved. I was in Houston feeling my Self for perhaps the first time, my Self tall and pale among the Chinese community I stayed…
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Extraordinary
“Living with you,” he said, “has been extraordinary. Extraordinary.” His heart filled his eyes for a moment, then became playful. “That’s a highlight for you, me saying that.” Why yes. Yes it was a highlight, and in our morning coffee ritual the next day, feet on lap, I told him so. Extraordinary. 1. Beyond what is ordinary or usual. 2. Highly exceptional; remarkable. We have both lived with others. My experiences then were those of survival, maintaining, staying safe from being hurt, trying to assert control where I felt none. I wanted love but didn’t know how to ask for it. Or where to look. Or I stopped believing it was possible.…
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Soulmate
He is cringing already at the title, I just know it, but it is far too late — the word has been said, not once but many times and not just in jest but in the deeper truth that lies beneath the fear. Soulmate. Not only have I never used this term with anyone in my long and not-so-illustrious relationship history, but I use it now with such certainty, such abandon, such restfulness that I can safely breathe past the wild pounding of my heart that tells me I am walking in uncharted territory. Soulmate. Not only am I his soulmate but he is mine. (Does that go without saying?…