Eleditor’s note: Elephant is a diverse community of sixteen million readers and hundreds of writers (you can write too!). We are reader-created. Many blogs here are experience, opinion, and not fact or The One Right Point of View. We welcome all points of view, especially when offered with more sources and less invective, more frankness and less PR. Dislike this Op-Ed or opinion? Share your own take here.

 

I saw something the first time I looked into her eyes
It was the entire universe
I could see the past and the future
I could see eternity
I could see myself
I had come home.
~ Rich Wright

I had been around for awhile. I had a lot of life experience, a couple of former wives and many other lovers throughout my forty-something years.

And although I fell in love a few times (at least what I thought love felt like), nothing could come close to how I felt with her.

I compared it to the birth of my children—the way their little eyes looked back at me was a look from God that every parent knows.

I saw that in her eyes the first time I looked into them. It was magical.

But I saw much more, too, and that confused me as much as it excited me. If I had to describe it, it would be like the feeling you get when you are completely connected to the divine on every level. It was like I had found what I had been searching for my whole life—like I could rest in the knowing that my search was over.

It was like discovering at last an essential missing part of me.

It was indeed like coming home.

And for the first few months, strange things occurred that I couldn’t understand.

Very early on during a small misunderstanding, she said something that made me think she wasn’t into growing the relationship. I reluctantly agreed that we would part ways. (After all, we only knew each other a week or so—we hardly had a relationship at all.)

But that night, as I tossed in my bed unable to sleep, I had the deepest sense of sadness and loss I had ever experienced.

I remember walking out on the deck, looking up at the stars and being angry at the universe for letting me feel that way. I was crushed beyond anything I could imagine, and it made no sense whatsoever. How could I feel this way about a woman I just met?

I cried my eyes out.

Somewhere in that altered state of dreams and reality, I knew something that I didn’t want to know—that I had met my twin flame.

So, for the next eight years, I went back and forth between a mystical sense of euphoria and bliss and a state of hopelessness, despair and unimaginable loss. The highs were the highest of highs, and the lows were darkness and depression like I had never known.

Mixed in with all of it were circumstances that would have made most people certifiably nuts. I got sick for four years and finally lost my colon. She lost a house and her life savings. Somehow, through all of it, we stayed together. Sure, we parted a couple of times, but we always ended up giving in to the pain and suffering brought on by being apart.

Being apart was worse than being miserable together.

Together, we were either thoroughly connected or pushing each other’s buttons like nothing you can imagine. It was black and white. But my God were we experiencing nirvana when we were connected. It was like time faded away and the whole world turned in on itself with love. Nothing could phase us; we danced upon heavenly ground, inundated by divine sights and sounds written in fairy tales and only experienced by angels.

She left again several weeks ago; the pain was too great.

And I guess the greatest pain included the things she didn’t want to see day after day—the things I showed her by being the mirror that I am. It’s no different the other way around; she shows me the things I don’t want to see—the ugly parts of me I need to heal and overcome in this lifetime.

For me, the same incredible agony that I first experienced is back—it’s ugly teeth within striking distance. I sit for countless hours trying to decide what to do to overcome the misery that has become so familiar.

And, as usual, I wonder if she’s ever coming back, knowing that she can’t stay away for too long.

There is a pull that is beyond the knowledge of man that drags us toward each other time and time again—no matter what stands in its path. It will find us everywhere, anywhere. It calls out our name in the dark silence of the night, beckons us to let go of what’s holding us back from what we know is our destiny.

The force is love and I know of nothing stronger, more determined. I used to say that love always finds a way—wishful words that come to me in my despair through vivid dreams and promise their truth. Love is the only truth that I know so I surrender again to love—to truth.

A lot has been written about the twin flame relationship and I have studied it extensively lately. I believe I have experienced most of what has been written. There is always one twin who stays, and another who runs. I am the one that stays.

I don’t hear much about the twin that runs, maybe because, like me, the one that stays is the one that writes.

As I look over the past eight years, I have come to realize that I have messed with destiny (if there is such a thing) and, somehow, I manipulate her back into my life time after time. I also realize that no matter if she’s with me or not, wherever she is, she is suffering as much as me.

And then it hit me: compassion instead of manipulation.

There is no doubt that we are twin flames; it couldn’t be anything else. We are part of each other. I forgot to put aside my self and remember that. No matter what, we will always be deeply connected. It has always been that way and it always will be.

If you are the one who stays, the hardest thing is to know that he or she is not with you. But the truth is that they are very much with you—always. Let this beautiful, painful, divine relationship go with the knowing that it will always come back.

Trust that the universe knows what it is doing and, as hard as it may be, let go.

I called her, and her experience told her that I was trying to charm her back in again. She was wrong this time. I felt the energy shift much like it would after the predator leaves the forest.

I told her three words that came to me from another place. Three words she never expected but exemplified the meaning of compassion. Three words that set both of us free to let the universe have control again. Three words that have always blocked her from me—words that would let her start healing what she needed to heal, much like myself.

I said the three words she most wanted to hear and I said them with love:

I support you.

As we hung up, I imagined the sound of a heart and wings beating together as she flew away.

~

Relephant Read:

The Twin Flame Dynamic: More than Meets the Eye.

~

Author: Rich Wright

Editor: Toby Israel

Photo: Flickr/Iloveart Iloveart

~