It is possible to be with someone you love for years and years, live with them every day, and feel completely alone. Whether its from being misunderstood, or too much trouble to understand, or too threatening in ways you overshadow them, or wondering why your partner acts ashamed of you, being kept at arms-length in public, or simply always being the very last concern on his or her list every day, except birthdays. These are all slippery things that can make a person feel incredibly isolated and lonely and can eat away like a disease at self-esteem. It becomes a vicious cycle, as the inbuilt mechanism within that would normally release you from a partner who lacks the insight to appreciate the amazing thing they have in you, that safety-eject feature becomes damaged by repeated confirmation from someone you respect, that you have low worth. When someone you truly love confirms these things, it is able to cut right through every barrier that would normally give you reason or perspective to reject the ideas, to see your dazzlingly true worth. Perspective to see the dysfunction for what it is. And as you accept the behaviour repeatedly, the partner receives confirmation that you are indeed not worth it, and starts to believe it far outside of their own damaged ideas. They often eventually wander off with someone else, which in itself can possibly be the most destructive final blow to your self-esteem. If you allow it.

Nearly everyone says at some point, cynically, “we are all born alone, and we die alone, and its an all-for-ourselves universe, so we’d better just get used to it and accept it”. I used to believe this but I don’t accept this idea anymore. I think ideas like this limit our capacity for true happiness. We attract what we believe and then project, into our lives. Every time. Low self-esteem? Attract what I described above. Someone who reflects it back at you in one way or another. The inverse is true. Healthy self-esteem and a good dose of optimism, the sky’s the limit.

First of all, we are not born alone. We are created in a moment of orgasm, of two people entwined, most of the time in a moment of great passion and love. A truly beautiful echoed expression of the universe’s first Big Bang. We grow and thrive in the warm, pink-lit belly of a mothership, a woman who sometimes loves you unconditionally the moment she sees you. Every single one of us starts off life for nearly a year tied to our mothers as she goes through daily life, exposes us to her heart palpitations as she kisses our dad, adrenalin, taste in foods, strange sounds, crying and laughter, nausea, physical manifestations of the huge range of emotions she feels. And when we come out and that tie is severed, we are held in her arms. Rocked, sang to, watched with interest as we grow and regurgitate food, like we are the most fascinating thing ever created. Granted, a lot of parents are egotistical, self-congratulating themselves at creating a mini person just like them which they love because its easier than loving a uniquely different person for who they are, in many cases, and soon we become annoying and a burden to keep alive, and then its the die-hard good parents who keep at it, and really truly love us through all the years, as we turn out to be so different from what they expected. But I digress. We are not born alone at all. Sometimes we are even born with a twin or multiple brothers and sisters and go through life with that incredible bond.

And we don’t all die alone. A few couples actually die together for some reason, sometimes because of an accident, sometimes from a broken heart of their life-long partner having just slipped away minutes before in their arms. So many who are first to go, get to die in the arms of the ones they have grown old with, surrounded by all their family. It is possible to be one of the lucky ones. Its not the rarest thing in the world. It happens every minute of the day.

I hope with all my heart that I will be one of the lucky ones. I vibrate with the hope with every atom of me that I will meet the person who loves me with every ounce of the same love and extreme attraction I feel towards him. That I will find someone who cannot believe their ridiculous luck in finding me, out of all the people wandering the earth, as I will feel exactly about him. Chosen just for me. I hope that he will grow old with me and never care for a wrinkle that bursts out from our adventures together, kiss each new one as it arrives, notice each grey hair that sprouts, always seeing right through the ageing body to the girl he first met, wanting me as I will want him with such a furious passion until I cannot even move a muscle anymore I am so old. And in that time, I hope I will be with him when I die, or at the very least to be there for him, to usher him out of this world, so that I can be sure to identify his soul as it slips away past my heart and my face, tickles through my topmost hairs into the universe beyond, so that I will recognise him more easily in the next life, so that I won’t have to wander for very long without him. The concept of soul-mate has to come from somewhere, the belief in this concept has been alive through the ages crossed religions and nationalities, and deep inside of me I believe in it. Call me a romantic shmuck. I don’t care. As long as I get to believe in it again. To enjoy at least one lifetime of such bliss.

I don’t want to live through this life alone, or with someone who doesn’t understand me. Once I am ready to move on, I want to spend most of my years in love, always feeling held by the comforting arms of mutual adoration.