Knowing ~ when you meet your soul mate

By Veronika Sophia Robinson

April 16th, 1995 This day will forever remain the anniversary of my heart. It was the day you first kissed me. The day you held me close, looked into my eyes, and found me. In that moment, you held me as if I was the most precious thing in the Universe. You’ve done so every day since. I can still feel that first hug, your soft breath against the curve of my neck, and the sense of knowing that I’d come home.

April 16th was when I touched my Happily Ever After.

Funny, just a few weeks before you turned up and made me laugh, I’d written a list of my ‘ideal man’ requirements. Near the top of the list was ‘someone who’d sing to me’. The Universe must have smiled that day, knowing that you were a professional singer and that it would be just the blink of an eye until we found each other again. Even now, all these years later, hearing your voice in the shower has me whispering ‘thank you.’

The first song you ever sang to me was “If tomorrow never comes, would she know how much I loved her…” As the years have ticked on by, this has remained ‘our song’.

I knew you were unlike the fifty or so men I had dated in the previous ten years. I simply knew. You felt different, both to the touch, and to my heart. You smelled different, too. You smelt like a man I wanted to breathe in night and day: a sexy combination of the earthy spice cumin and kind, loving man. Your voice soothed me to sleep, and your love woke me up. Through empathy, kindness, awareness and tenderness, you found ways to help me blossom into the woman I am today. Quite simply, my love, you healed me.

Perhaps it was the way you made me laugh, or your shy yet mischievous smile. One thing was for sure: I knew you were different. I knew, in that language beyond words, that you and I had known each other forever. How else would it have been possible for us to move in with each other the next day, promising that we wanted to be with each other for a long time?

On this, our nineteenth anniversary, I still know. Not once have you ever made me feel bad about myself, or inadequate as a woman or a lover. You have tilted your whole life in such a way so that I can fully live mine, not from sacrifice, but love.

A blustery day: Green Bay, Auckland, New Zealand.

I see you walk through the street in town towards me, and I realise “Oh, I know him! That lovely man is mine!” My heart pounds as if I’m 16 years old. I go weak at the knees because I know that it wasn’t a silly, spontaneous decision to spend my life with you. I know that we were simply picking up wherever we left off in a previous life. And if reincarnation isn’t real, then I simply thank my stars for such damn good luck!

Nineteen years later, our baby is off to university. Both of our daughters are a living embodiment of our knowing. Before we had even made love, I knew you’d be an amazing father. And you have been, and still are.

You have shown me that my inner knowing is the greatest tool I have in this lifetime. When you had a heart attack last year, I knew that my life would never, could never, be the same again if you left this earthly world. Who would make me laugh the way you do? Who would catch my tender heart when it aches? Who would be a role model to our daughters about what a ‘real man’ is like? And who the heck would clean up the cat vomit in such a perfect way?

I live each day grateful that you’re still here, walking side by side with me, knowing that each day is a beautiful miracle.

This, I know: if tomorrow never comes, I will know how much you loved me. You, my love, have never left me in any doubt.

Just before we met, a tarot card reader told me about a man coming into my life. A man so amazing that I would pinch myself every day. She was right. Nineteen years later, I am still pinching myself. Nineteen years later, I am still laughing dozens of times each day. You, make me do that. You, are the love of my life. You, honey. Only you.

When I’m asked how you can tell if someone is the ‘right’ person for you, my reply is always the same: you don’t have to ask, you just know.

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I submitted the above piece to an online journal called When Women Awake. The theme was ‘knowing’. My piece was rejected for not having ‘emotional complexity’ and because it wasn’t considered interesting.
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Today I humbly share this rejection with you, thankful for every day I have spent with my beloved. I hope you enjoyed reading it and do, indeed, find it interesting and rich with the emotion I feel for this amazing man in my life. ~ Veronika x