Years before I had my first serious relationship at the age of 17, I saw my soul mate in a dream. He was about the same age as I was, and looked very shy. The only thing that told me who he was, was the feeling I recalled when I woke up and the happiness that lingered the whole day. Cheesy as it may sound (and I was unashamedly a mushy romantic back then), I would say it was magical. The experience was something I wanted to tell my best friends and mom and sister about, but I didn?t. At that age you could dream of anyone, including Brad Pitt, and proclaim him as your soul mate.
To keep the magic, I kept it to myself. I loved believing My Soul Mate would happen. I daydreamed about him and imagined his face for days. I even thought about him before I went to sleep to induce another dream.
But soon another boy came and sort of knocked him out of my head. I know he was The Other Boy because I felt something other than what My Soul Mate left me. The Other Boy courted me throughout high school, and we became an item after graduation. But since I had to go to the province for college and he had to move to Manila, our long-distance relationship lasted a measly seven months. By that time, I had completely forgotten about My Soul Mate.
When I entered college, love took a back seat partly because I was still healing after my breakup with The Other Boy, but mostly because I did not go out on dates. I dislike dates; I find the ritual phony, awkward, and even horrifying. I cannot imagine myself being stuck with someone I barely know. Group dates? Not a chance. Even if I live in a dorm without curfew, Thursday nights (the regular night-out on campus) find me sleeping in my bed or reading a book. And I go home every Friday night.
Soon, I realized that I was putting up more walls than I had intended. I am not a man-hater or a closet lesbian, but I can feel my insides wince when I am talking to some strange guy. In college, you get to meet a lot of people whether you like it or not. My rational self knows, deep, deep in my heart, that if this keeps up until I am 40, I would reach reluctantly a genetic dead end.
My mom and relatives, however, praise me to high heavens for being single and ?focused.? In some crazy moments, I feel proud about this, but I usually find it weird.
I have my share of suitors, but none of them has made me fall in love with him. No one has been persistent, nay, persevering enough.
I think about this as I contemplate my last semester. The dilemma of a non-romantic college life and eventually becoming an old maid was not the movie I scripted back when I was a kid. Of course, I tell myself I am too young to worry about marriage, and boredom is always overshadowed by a heavy academic load among other things, so it is easy to forget. But my subconscious knows better.
One night, after almost five years, My Soul Mate paid me another visit. It was in the sleepy month of August when, in dreamland, I saw My Soul Mate looking up at me behind a large white table in an unfamiliar classroom. He looked very sad. I did not know it then, but when I woke up I realized My Soul Mate looked different from when I first saw him. It was as if he, too, had aged.
I recalled the vision that morning, recorded my disbelief in MS Word, and then went on with life. I was no longer the sophomore kid who mooned over a stranger in her dreams.
However, a month later the subject of soul mates came up again. A friend told me she had seen hers in a dream. I asked her if she knew the person, and if the same dream had come to her before. She wasn?t sure who he was, but it was the first time she had dreamed about her soul mate.
Later, I sat down in the solitude of my dorm room contemplating the possibility of a spirit visiting me twice. I was touched by the effort, if there was any, but I could no longer question his existence. I was more concerned over why he looked sad, and how I looked to him in that dream.
I may have grown cynical over the years, but I still recognize a Heavenly Signal whenever God puts one out for me. What I have to do now is to figure it all out ? without dating.
I cannot pledge to go from ?Status: single, not available? to ?Status: single, up for grabs? immediately, even if everyone is telling me some obvious solutions, including Google (type ?soul mates? and you?ll get some dating sites on the first page). Perhaps I haven?t killed the romantic in me yet who believes that bells ring or sparks fly when you meet The One. There?s still a lot of discovering for me to do, including of myself and why I act introverted or like I am scared of men. Or why God sent teasers instead of the real thing.
One of these days, when I become the person I am intended for My Soul Mate, I might appear to him in his dream. But I hope that it happens in this lifetime, and that we will both know it was worth the wait.
Anne Llanes, 21, is a Bachelor of Science in Biology senior at the University of the Philippines, Los Bańos.
