Twin Flame: Someone you share the same soul with. Two people who share a breathtaking connection filled with synchronicities. Everything about yourself that you have been running from, is suddenly found right in front of you. They will trigger wounds all for the purpose of healing. They are your ultimate teacher, friend, partner and lover. They are a mirror.
But sadly, because a twin flame is put in your life to help you grow, the connection will ultimately be chaotic and intense. Most twin flames separate, because that once in a lifetime love was only there to teach you a lesson about YOURSELF. One you may have never learned otherwise.
On September 26th, 2018 I met my twin flame. I was drawn to Miles long before his sparkling blue eyes met mine. In an age of social media we both found each other far before that initial meeting. He was magnetizing. I couldn’t wait to see what he would do next. We had the same interests, the same passions. He was me.
The synchronicities began that late September day. I was sad. Sadder than I’d been in a very long time. A hike that Miles had told me about was on my radar. I had rearranged a weekend to do it with a girlfriend...only to find she’d abandoned me and taken someone else, leaving me jealous and confused. In my angst I decided to take the pup for a walk somewhere new. The fall colors were gorgeous and I had heard about a “Love Lock” bridge on the river, so we ventured out to get some fresh air and find it.
Then...there he was. He had just happened to have a few spare moments and decided on a whim that he’d stop to shoot those beautiful fall colors in the same place and then...there I was. There WE were. Finally face to face. The meeting I had only pictured a thousand times in my head.
I told him about his hike and how sad I was that she’d ditched me. He told me not to fret because he’d take me someday. And I couldn’t help but think to myself...maybe that’s why it didn’t work out. Because Miles was who I was supposed to adventure with all along.
Little did I know how true that was.
I’ve never been so flustered meeting someone before. And as he drove away I shook my head at myself in embarrassment about how difficult it had been for me to even form sentences around him. But he had changed my whole day. I was happy again. I smiled in the car the whole way home.
Over the course of the next few months we stayed in touch even more so than we had prior to meeting. But whenever he had somebody, I didn’t and whenever I had somebody he didn’t and we were both too scared to pull the trigger in between. Somehow though, my mind always found its way back to those sparkling blue eyes and I knew our story hadn’t even begun yet.
Then it finally happened. I was single. So was he. And we took a leap of faith to venture out of town even though we’d never spent time together face to face aside from our quick meeting months before.
We were going to go find a waterfall. And camp in the woods. Just him and me. And the dogs.
I’ll never forget the way my heart fluttered when he got out of his car in front of my apartment. He was so handsome. So confident. Then he smiled. And I knew.
I don’t need to get into the details of the adventure. But it was perfect. He just got me. And so began a whirlwind romance/friendship/bond of epic proportions that I never saw coming. We spent the next few months exploring every inch of the Pacific Northwest. Chasing waterfalls. Bushwhacking through forests to find places undiscovered by the average human. I saw things I never dreamed possible. We conquered the world together, one adventure at a time. He held my hand in the car and we listened to songs that made us cry and laughed at everyone who wasn’t us. We shared our dreams and wished on stars and held our breath in tunnels. And every time I made a wish, I wished for him. I wanted to keep him forever.
Miles was the first person I’d truly loved since a failed marriage. So much, in fact, that it made me wonder if that was ever really love to begin with. Because what I felt with him, was so much more. It was wild. It was passionate. It was comfortable. I felt like I’d known him my entire life and maybe in lifetimes before.
Then on one fateful afternoon in June I said something to a girlfriend that will forever haunt me.
“I’m going to marry him someday. Not a doubt in my mind. This is the man I’m going to marry.”
We laughed and I told her how I dreamed he’d propose...from the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon on an epic adventure and it would be perfect. Instead of a bachelorette party we’d rent a fire lookout and make smores. And on our wedding day, Miles and I would dance to Erick Baker and I’d wear flowers in my hair. My heart was so happy that afternoon. I had never been so sure of anything in my life.
The next day Miles broke up with me.
Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. And I spiraled. I didn’t understand. I didn’t see it coming. Had I jinxed it? What had happened? What did I miss? What did I do wrong?
My world crumbled around me. I tried to keep busy by marking hikes off the list that we were supposed to do together, but nothing was going right. Then a couple weeks later it all came crumbling down. I tried to hike the hike he’d told me about a year before once again. I made it to the top, only to be suffocated by the thickest fog imaginable. My car bottomed out the whole way there and back. Maybe I really was supposed to hike this with him.
The next day I attempted another adventure we’d wanted to do together. And as I approached the campground near the Canadian border, with only three short miles to go, our song came through the speakers. I started crying, and as I reached up to wipe the tears from my cheeks I hit a deer. Dead on. At 65 miles an hour.
I’ve never killed anything in my life. As I sat next to her on the highway I ran my fingers through her fur and apologized profusely. I pressed my palm into the warmth of her neck and looked her in the eye and told her to give her pain to me. And she did. And from that moment her suffering engulfed me.
Sometimes hitting rock bottom is the only way to truly face your demons. And I spent the next 24 hours doing some real soul searching. Not just about Miles, or the deer, or even life and death. But MY life. I had been on a journey to better myself for a few years now. I had hit rock bottom once before, only in a much different manner. And I taught myself then that the only way to turn things around was to stop playing the victim and make a change. And I did. So why was I letting my heart dictate my feelings? What had happened to that girl that I had worked so hard to become?
Heartbreak had opened me up. Heartbreak was going to allow me to heal the final parts of myself that I hadn’t realized were still suffering. And the pain of killing that innocent dear woke something up inside of me. Life wasn’t always going to be rainbows and butterflies. I had to keep putting in the work if I wanted to live the life I had always imagined - with or without Miles in it.
The next day I got a phone call.
Rewind 15 years. I was a starving radio promotions technician. And somebody told me I could do better. That I could be on air. That I could make a living doing it. And I believed him because he believed in me.
And on the other end of the line, that man was calling.
That night we sat in the lounge at the casino, smoking expensive cigars and talking about life. He knew something was wrong. And so the pep talk from 15 years ago began again. I hadn’t reached my ceiling. I could WANT more. It was okay to want more from life at this age. I had done all the things he knew I could do when I was in my early 20s, why not keep going?
I went to a Michael Franti concert that night and I swear he looked up at me in the bleachers and said…”I know you’ve had a bad couple of weeks. Yes, I’m talking to you. Bad shit happens, but good shit happens too.”
He really was talking to me. I believe it with all of my heart. And suddenly I knew. There was still something out there for me to conquer. I just wasn’t sure what yet.
I continued to adventure without Miles, but after that night I stopped doing it out of spite and for myself. I bushwhacked alone through forests and found epic waterfalls. I climbed mountains and saw the most beautiful things mother nature had ever allowed me to lay eyes on. And I cried almost every day wishing he was there experiencing these things with me, but I was finally at peace with the memories. And so very grateful for each and every magical moment Miles gifted me.
Then it happened. The day that changed everything and it all finally made sense.
“Would you want to move to Arizona?”
“...um...but...mountains?”
“What about the Grand Canyon?”
“Can I think about it?”
I didn’t have the job yet, but there was an opportunity. A huge one. 1400 miles away. The kind of opportunity a girl only dreams about. The kind I’d been working toward for so long. So I said yes.
And the first person I told, was Miles.
I don’t know that he really took me seriously at that moment. I didn’t get much of a response from him. After all, we’d always talked about how we’d never leave the PNW. We loved the rain, the clouds, the mountains the trees. Why vacation to a sunny beach when you could have waterfalls and rivers and moody vibes?
But something in my gut said this was it. And I knew I had to listen.
Then out of nowhere, Miles came back. Where my other friends faltered in supporting me through what would become the biggest adventure of my life, he reappeared. My best friend. My confidant. My everything. The night before I flew to Phoenix for my interview he sent me a text, cheering me on. At 5am the morning of, I got another and soon the man I’d known before I’d met him was back in my corner. My biggest fan. And I was whole again.
When I got the call, I hesitated to tell him. But I had more to tell him than that I had gotten the job. I had to tell him why things didn't work out. Because now, finally, after all this time...I knew. I understood.
September 26th 2019. Unbeknownst to either of us it was a year from the day we’d met at that love lock bridge. I was curled up in his arms and we were talking about dreams again. Only this time mine were different. I put my chin on his chest and told him the story of what happened while he was away. The deer, the call and the concert, and why we didn’t work out.
“Had you not broken up with me...had we stayed together...I would have never said yes to moving. I would have never even given Phoenix a second thought. We didn’t work because I was meant to leave. The Universe didn’t want me to stay.”
He had his head turned away from me and didn’t say anything. He probably thought I was being ridiculous...and then I heard the sniffle. He turned to me, those blue eyes I’d grown so attached to now filled with tears.
“You're right.”
I told Miles I loved him for the hundredth time that night. And for the first time he said it back. And I think for the first time he understood why he did what he did when he pushed me away so many months before. That night, it all finally came full circle.
I guess the moral of the story is this... Good things fall apart sometimes, but they only fall apart so better things can come together. As cliche as it is, everything really does happen for a reason. And what Miles taught me in the last year is more valuable than any lesson I’ve ever learned. Miles taught me to see the beauty in everything...but he also taught me to see the things that weren’t so pretty, so I could fix them. And make them beautiful too.
He taught me what I’m capable of. He taught me what a heart is meant to feel - even when in agony. He taught me who I AM. Who I’m meant to be.
Someday I’m going to learn that Miles has found an amazing woman. She’ll be his soulmate. But I’ll always be his twin flame. And who knows...maybe, just maybe someday we’ll dance backwards into each other again.
Love freely. Even if it hurts.
Thank you Miles, for not only being a part of my story, but inspiring and pushing me to tell it. Adore you. Appreciate you. Keeping you forever.