My Karmic Soulmate is Dating Someone Else
And I Want To Scream
With everything going on in the world right now, the last thing I wanted was to be heartbroken but here I am yet again.
It’s hard to admit that I did this to myself. In the moment that my karmic soulmate reached out to me a month after our break up, I had two choices: I could either hear him out and see how he was doing or I could blow him off.
I thought long and hard about how my life had been since I broke things off. I wanted to to focus on myself, I wanted to get more work done, and I wanted to have the time I needed to truly accomplish my goals and I was doing that. Finally, I was focusing on myself and doing what was best for me but, in my quest to make things all about me, I lacked the ability to understand and feel what I was missing.
Though I did feel the need to create boundaries for both my emotional and mental health, all I could think of in the back of my head was how much I wanted him to be a part of everything that I was doing. The reality was that I missed him and the feeling of wanting to be with him had never changed. I waited for his call, I wanted to hear from him, and I wanted to answer with a big stupid smile on my face; professing my love again. I wanted to fulfill my romantic movie fantasy by running into his big embrace and giving him that long awaiting Hollywood smooch as my leg cocked in pure bliss but, through my determination to put myself first, I hurt him, badly.
During the last month of our long distance relationship, I could sense the loss of hope in both of us as the crisis of the pandemic rose. The prospect that he’d be able to move closer to me had constantly been shut down, we talked less, we neglected each other’s needs, and I was in a constant state of worry for our future which put a strain on my ability to focus on the things I needed to do for myself. The distance between us and our unstable surroundings hit us hard and the only solution I could think of at the time was to end it.
So, after contemplating my initial reason for our breakup, I chose the latter. I blew him off and told him that I could no longer prioritize him in my life.
In that moment, I felt all of the compassion drain out of my body into a numb nothingness which then turned into a dreadful sense that something was wrong. It felt horrible. As I typed the words, I could hear myself screaming internally. My conscience was saying, “What are you doing?! You want to be with him! Stop, stop, stop!,” but I kept the harsh momentum going until there was nothing left for either of us to say.
In the days that followed our brief conversation, I felt more remorse than I knew what to do with. I boasted about being true to myself while holding in my feelings and pretending they didn’t exist. That was not the me I ever wanted to be.
When I prematurely ripped off that bandaid, I watched as my unhealed wound bled to death.
I could see that something was wrong but I chose to ignore his pained words which, in retrospect, seemed like a cry for help to at least restore our friendship.
My failed attempts to distract myself afterward, made me realize that I needed to do something about how I was feeling. I decided that I needed to fess up and have a real conversation. I grabbed my phone for the call but I was shocked when I stumbled upon something in the process. My feeds had suddenly been paraded by big bold photos of him on a trip with friends, holding hands, smiling, and getting cozy with someone else. Needless to say, I was wrecked.
All I could think of was that it should’ve been me. I should have been the one in the photos in his arms but, instead, I was the one watching on the sidelines with the tub of ice cream, a giant pizza, and a bag of Hawaiian sweet rolls waiting to be devoured. Not to mention the fact that she looked like a goddess that constantly shouted “I woke up like this” and I looked like the wrinkly piece of gum that you would desperately try to scrape off your shoe thanks to the unfortunate inability to primp myself in the way that I used to pre-pandemic.
After a total meltdown, I took a 6 mile walk around my city that day to clear my head; hoping that I would come to some sort of conclusion about what I should do. When I got home, I had nothing. It wasn’t until I spoke to my roommate about the situation that I gained some insight. The verdict was that I should call him, if only to understand what was happening from his perspective.
When I reached out I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and say everything that I wished I had said before but I took a deep breath, calmed my anxiety, and apologized for being so harsh during our previous encounter. The first sentence he uttered blew my apologizes out into the wind. He told me that he’d met someone that weekend and that he was happy. I felt a huge pang in my stomach and I wanted destroy everything in sight. Though he assured me that there was much more he wanted to say, he couldn’t continue the conversation because he wasn’t alone (go figure). At that point, I pretty much knew that I’d lost him and my response could only be that I was happy for him.
After the call, as I cried my eyes out in both anger and frustration, I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to let him go again. After years of standing by and watching one another as we happily lived our lives with others, we were back to square one and I had to let it be.
I thought our moment to grow together had finally come but, our entire relationship pointed to us manifesting our growth from a distance. Who knows if we’ll ever get another chance but our long history has shown that we’ll always cross paths and be there for one another when we’re needed the most and, in the long run, I guess that’s all that really matters.
Though I still want to scream to the heavens, I have no choice but to push through this knowing that if it’s really meant to be, it’ll happen eventually. At least I know what not to do in the future, right?
