Single Again… Broken In Two

By Kenneth Stepp

First, the title is not an error, I Meant it to be in two. I was with my wife for 24 years, she was my soulmate, the love of my life, my forever… Till she wasn’t. You see, she and I had become one person. Like a partnership, one considered the other in all manner of decisions. We were one. When we broke up, we were broken in two. We were still part of the whole but no longer a whole. 

Imagine taking your hands and pressing your palms together. You still have two hands. Now join your fingers together, two becomes one. They are now stronger, smarter, and totally one. This is the life of soulmates separated by divorce, death, or just lack of empathy. My life now is that one hand. As I meet new potential mates, I pray that those fingers will fit snugly with my own. I’m not whole, I’m the other part of her, my Her.

Does this mean I’m broken forever? Maybe. Perhaps I’ll never find her, maybe she gave up years ago. My romantic heart however, believes she is searching for me most days. Have we met? My heart thinks this is true. Do we interact online or face to face? No idea. All I know is there is a girl out there that knows she is broken in two like me. 

Broken:

“Having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order”

Not in working order… Boy does that resonate with me. Don’t get me wrong, I work and by all outward signs, am in working order. But my soul is broken. It knows it isn’t whole. It understands the missing piece and searches for her. To be broken apart from the other you. That’s hard for me to wrap my mind around. 

The things I recall about being an intact family. And yes, a couple is a family. I remember when something huge happened, an accomplishment, crushed a goal, or anything that mattered happened, I would call her immediately. Nothing mattered as much as that because my life was our life. My joy was our joy. Looking back, I had no idea how much I would miss that. Probably because I never believed we’d be apart.

I’m single. If you are reading this, you may be as well. We lost someone important to us. We lost something important as well. Oneness. Oneness is what we became when we had that person with the fingers that fit our hands perfectly, our very souls will melt into one beautiful, complex, and damaged soul. And none of that damage will affect our oneness again.

These are my thoughts, perhaps just my dreams. Maybe I will remain broken, maybe she will too. That would be tragic but totally possible. The romantic in me is naive and wise at the same time. I believe the wisdom came from the over 7 years I’ve been single and the trail of broken dreams that followed. Have you ever thought about what you want in a relationship? I want what I thought I had. Because I’ve never had it, I cannot know it exists. What I do know is the broken side of me bleeds pain, it bleeds loneliness, and it bleeds confusion. Hers does too. It would be a shame if we never find one another. 

Today will be like all my days. I get up, I work, I write, and I dream. I dream my brokenness joins with hers. On that day, the bleeding will stop. The pain, the loneliness, and the confusion will vanish. That day we will be whole again. To others it may not look like it did in our past. But the oneness we once had will be back again. Fingers entwined, we will embrace not being broken. Just two again. Just us, just one, our one…

#comefindme