Soul Mate Material

There are many perks to being a single gal living on her own in this day and age. For instance, there are no battles for the remote; if I want to watch "Sex in the City" despite the static and fuzzy reception, I can. Nor are there disputes over music--I can indulge my bad taste all I want and listen to the album Crash on repeat simply because I am too lazy to pick another cd and no one complains. And to be a single girl with a blog brings even more benefits--I can look up all sorts of ridiculous topics on the internet all in the name of "research" and "material" for my writing.

Yesterday I was stuck on the word soulmate, the concept that haunts and teases the single girl of today's society and causes her to forget about all the perks of living alone. What is a soulmate? Does it exist? Do we meet just one? What chance do any of us have at long term monogamy? Are we chasing a myth? I turned to the internet to see what I could find. 

First, of course, was the sheer volume of postings on the subject. Google told me that I was looking at results 1-10 of about 935,000 postings on "finding a soulmate." There are nearly a million articles on finding a soulmate; apparently I am not the only person indulging in the word. 

More surprising than the number of postings related to finding a soulmate was the content of the material out there. The second listing I found went to a website called soulmatekit.com.  That's right. Soulmate KIT. Like a jewelry kit, or a juggling kit, but for finding your one true love instead. For $397 I could order such a kit and be magically transformed, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. I must admit, there's a certain appeal here, just like with those jewelry parties people are always throwing. You know that it's a waste of money but you find you just can't turn away from the silver pendant that allows you to interchange synthetic stones of different colors.

Not only did this site offer a kit for true love, it offered a soul mate IQ quiz, which I decided to take in the name of "research" (of course).  Nine grueling questions later I learned I was 71.44% ready to meet my soulmate, but that there were still blocks in my life preventing me from meeting that special guy. I thought back to the questions--I did answer no when asked if my home was ready to receive my soulmate because laundry currently litters my bathroom floor. Perhaps a cleaner apartment will bring love to my life?

Next I turned to the ultimate authority on all subjects--Wikipedia. It revealed the standard definition of soulmate--a companion with whom one feels deep friendship, companionship, sexuality, spirituality, and compatibility. It also explained the mythological concept behind it from classical literature. Apparently humans were made originally with four arms, four legs, and two faces, but Zeus, fearing the power of these humans, split them all in half, condemning them all to spend the rest of their lives searching for their missing half. 

I don't know how I feel about this concept. Do I want to spend the rest of my life searching for a missing piece? What about the beautiful pieces I have already found? The friends that glitter and sparkle as a part of the mosaic of my soul? 

I think that is the concept I will choose to believe: my life as a collage of changeable pieces--picking up new colors and designs throughout the years, beautiful and shining... always, always shining.