Re-reading Some of My Written Words, Leaves Me Thinking About The Concept Of "Soul Mates"

After reading some of my written words, I came across words pertaining to my Ex as my "Soul Mate". Funny how I believed in this for a long period of time, I find myself drawn to the conclusion that, yes, it was something I was always looking for. The concept of love and a "Soul Mate" grew in me over the years. For the better part of my adult life , I was the found at the back of the bar during the last waltz saying cheers to myself with my beer in hand, murmuring to ones self that, "I will have that last dance with a woman somewhere in my life time". That special bond of oneness with one that you would call your Soul Mate", for almost everything one could ask for. Being brought up with what I would call a stern United Church of Canada religious background, starting from my Sunday School Class attendance as a youngster, to always attending the seasonal Christmas Party at our place of worship while growing up. Then returning to be at a Church Service wearing my Canadian Coast Guard Uniform as an adult, I was always strongly influenced by my Church of Baptizmal. My ideologies around "Soul Mates" obviously revolve around the Church and Christianity, my concept has grown as I have, especially in coming out of a relationship where I felt I had met my "Soul Mate". It is like a preconceived notion in some, that they have to find their "Soul Mate" ,to be truly happy and content in a relationship. From my own experience, I slowly grew into the idea that I was with my "Soul Mate", due to having a preconceived idea that I was to find my "Soul Mate". Sure I created this thought out of my own wit while being influenced by society that I grew up in. My parents relationship was like the "first true love" for each other, which I guess I went looking for as well to some degree. I was not the type of person that went out just to hunt down a female counterpart, in high school the opposite sex never seemed to take any interest in me and I did my own thing preparing to leave my home town to go into the Coast Guard after high school, it was a steadfast thought from an early age. I had the rest of my life to discover the wonderful world of women and finding my "Soul Mate". Going out into the world from my home town, it was natural for me to think that I would get educated, save some money and then hopefully find my "Soul Mate" and get married in a Church to live happily ever after in wedded bliss. So far this has not happened to a large degree. Well, I did get educated, saved money while working on the ships while having the laid back attitude that somehow there would be some fluke meeting with a woman and I would find my "Soul Mate" as others have done before me. Why a "Soul Mate", well I always had a special interest in ghost stories and the Church. Faithful in my own personal prayer without showing it much, I always carried a mystic about myself, as I pursued my own personal faith in life and God or Gods. That concept of a special person that you find and desire to marry in a Church, grew in me to believe in such a thing as a "Soul Mate" that is out there for me. It was always hard for me to find date, never mind that special person that you would like to call your "Soul Mate". I had what you would call my first fling with a woman in a relationship when I was thirty, it was more of a relationship of convenience because she wanted me more than I want her at first. We had our strikes against us for we were both mental health consumers, the relationship only lasted nine months and was more a party on my part while holding down a job. The party ended when my "girl" decided to obliged another man that had been hitting on her while I was with her. I got the news of her fling with my room mate at a time, when I was alone all week-end partying and hung over Sunday morning. She came to me and confessed her adultery with my room mate while I was totally hung over. I had little or no reaction at the time which she took as a sign of my lack of love and fight for her. I think I was so hung over I asked her to repeat what she said, when she stated she spent the night with one of my room mates somewhere else. It was not a good reaction while lighting the first morning cigarette, I ended up a lone with my Sunday morning hang over thinking to myself, "Thank God I never saw her as my "Soul Mate". As time passed and I went through a relocation of residence and built a new life, I was drawn on occasion to going to a Psychiatric Drop In Center while holding down a job. During this time period, I was more inclined to accepting the Schizophrenia diagnoses and forgetting about my mystical foundations that were so dear to my heart. I was working as an electrical-mechanic and was going through a phase of terms of endearment with modern Psychiatry and accepting a meager life style with my schizophrenia diagnoses. While going to the Psychiatric Drop In Center, I ran into a French Canadian woman close to my age, with the same diagnoses as I have and we hit it off pretty good as we got to know each other. My ability to hold down a job as a mental health consumer often proved to be a handy-cap on the personal level, due to feeling awkward about not having a "state" free relationship, a girl friend on Welfare included the Province of Quebec in the relationship with rules and regulations for what is living together and what is visiting. I learned my first lesson about giving a key to your apartment to a woman that you are dating, things happened faster than I anticipated. The relationship lasted twelve months and during this time period I was always searching for that special link to make that "Soul Mate " connection. Sure we shared a couple of mass hallucinations together and other freaky stuff but we could never come to a common consensus on the experience, we seemed to beg to differ on more than I anticipated for. As time passed, while I insisted she got a job when we lived together, due to her Welfare cheque grace for living with a boy friend was about to run out and it would be my pay cheque supporting both of us, it was then she played with medication and birth control pills. I ended up fighting to have a fetus being terminated with an abortion, due to not having the money to support a mother and child, especially where we were both mental health consumers and she turning semi-psychotic. A mental health worker that was always close to my common law spouse at the time, helped get her into hospital for her mental health along with submitting to an abortion from my influential hand of judgment. The relationship was terminated when she went into hospital and I buried myself in my work and alcohol from the thought of being part of an abortion. I made life go on while I got back to my mystical roots once again while taking the kicks from modern society for having mystical foundations. I found myself looking into the bottom of my beer glass and praying for a "Soul Mate" many a night during the last waltz in the Clubs for several years. Then one night when I was kind of looking for a date to take to a company Christmas party eight years ago, my Ex and I started sizing each other up for being a couple. The dream of a special "Soul Mate came a live again, even more so when we mutually discussed how I promised I would go off into the Coast Guard and come and find her after conquering the World. It was a mystical vow we agreed we remembered making to each other a long time a go in a park across from the old Montreal Forum. The worst part about being a mystic and a creative poet/artist in a relationship, is that you create poetry with words and paintings expressing your love for your partner, self induced belief in your "Soul Mate" concept through your creative works, that is all the more hard to destroy in separating from a relationship together. I whole heartedly believed I had met my "Soul Mate", we were so close in many ways at first. The only way I can figure the seven year relationship is from the words from my Social Worker at the time of our relationship and its troubles that always seemed to be there, "her family is sacred to her and your education is sacred to you, they are not mixing to well". My Social worker at the time also said to me, "You two should take off together and forget the rest", which was impossible with my common law spouse having a child at home still. It did tear me apart in various levels of emotional being when breaking off with her and starting to live as just room mates. We used to say a nightly prayer together for each other, that I wrote for what I thought would be our enduring love and "Soul Mates" so to think. Too much arguing ensued during the relationship, it was like I was always trying to prove I knew what I was talking about and just did not come out of a cracker jack box as a "schizo" or something. I felt more bonded by my art I created around our love and the promise to come back and find her, hence providing for her child and not thinking so much of my own personal needs in my relationship. I discovered it is a basic human function to forget about your own needs while trying to provide for the child that is present, I gained a lot while growing personally in a different direction from my Ex, away from the one I fell in love with, that I have called my "Soul Mate". When discussing the concept of "Soul Mates" with a close friend today, he made the statement in referral to a person having possibly more than one "Soul Mate". What if? Many a person before me has felt that they were with a "Soul Mate" and it did not work out. So they were always looking for one just like I was and theorized just like me about being with him/her, it makes it all the more difficult to separate from each other, but some times we have to do it to save our own "Sacred Soul". In my own writing in a musical concept album, that I started about twenty years ago, I wrote about a magical link with a woman that was a "Soul Mate" so to write. Now that I have evolved in the way I have, I believe even more so in that Godly magical link with a woman that would make her my "Soul Mate". I chased the idea once and perhaps I will always chase it in my power of prayers to try and make that feeling come alive again with a loving person at my side. With my "Schizo" prayer power, strange things happen, I can see it but my Psychiatrist can not, it is my World of delusion. If I get a "Soul Mate" out of it in the end, I guess I will not be so delusional after all.