by Sandra Lowen

Created on: October 11, 2009   Last Updated: October 12, 2009

SOUL MATES?

I married my soul mate.

I walked into a community action meeting, my mind far from finding love; it was on distributing baskets to the homebound. Suddenly there was a voice in my head: This is the man you are going to marry, it said. I saw only his back; he wore a canary yellow button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, revealing muscular arms, and a pair of Dockers that slid just as the designer intended over his well-endowed rear section. He was crowned with russet curls, and I caught the side of wire-rimmed glasses. My heart was just about to do that 'hop-skip' thing when I remembered:

I was already married.

Two months before, in a fit of approaching-thirty desperation, I had found myself married to an individual I knew was the wrong choice, even before the walk down the corridor to the Justice of the Peace's office. There hadn't been a bathroom to duck into to escape the excited clutches of family members and friends who couldn't believe I was actually getting married. I didn't know what the trouble was: I was friendly, outgoing, good-natured, and I think pretty, but there were no takers. Well-meaning friends and family brought by snaggletooth cousins and itinerant preachers, defrocked preachers and persons widowed under suspicious circumstances. Finally my father announced that I was just about at my expiration date, my Prince Charming was not going to show up and I might as well take whatever appeared at the door next. The guy turned out to be intemperate, short-tempered and 'delicate' in that artistic kind of way, I told myself there were no soul mates, and finding my own quiet ways to live out my life with an obviously bad choice was probably my best bet. I pledged 'til death and prayed for the end to come quickly.

Yet, here stood my soul mate. What was I to do?

A Family 'Trait'

This was no new conundrum in my family. My father saw my mother across a crowded room and swept her off for a two-week whirlwind romance before he 'remembered' that he had a wife and a child. He left her immediately, tried to put her out of her mind, and would have succeeded, had she not turned up pregnant. His wife had stomped off, indignant, and a few months later the two were in each other's arms.

I, on the other hand, did not have my father's derring-do. Even when Mr. Soul approached me and attempted a conversation, I blathered like an idiot and backed away. I'd done nothing to be ashamed of, but the experience had unsettled me. If only I had held out for a couple

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>