SOULMATES BY: KIMBERLY NDEGWA
“And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it’s to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.” -Plato, ‘The Symposium’. Plato says that humans used to have four arms, four legs, and a single head with two faces. We were powerful, fearless, and strong. However, our downfall came with arrogance and vanity when we instigated war against the gods. The king of the gods, Zeus, was scared of this power and decided to split us into two separate parts, condemning us to spend our lives in search of our other halves. We then had two arms, two legs, and one face; incomplete, weak. This is the explanation for why we’re constantly longing for something we don’t know yet. Longing to be complete again. Longing to find that person who is it for us, our soulmate. The quest to find our other halves continues to this day. Some find their soulmates in friendships, romantic lovers, or in family relations. They can be anywhere and that’s the most devastating part. What if they’re on the other side of the world? What if we never get to meet them? My theory is that there had to be a select group of super-powerful human beings. Ones who were so powerful that splitting them into two wasn’t enough. Their souls were taken and split into more pieces, spread all over the world making it harder for them to find each piece. This is why there are those of us who find someone who fills a part of our lives but there’s always another piece missing. These are the loneliest souls. I am lonely as fuck. Maybe that’s why my soul searches... for an adventure through the universe. Searches past the sky and past the stars. Away from the planets and the solar system. Maybe the other pieces of my soul are in different galaxies. Because once upon a time, we were among the biggest and the bravest. We were willing to fight all odds to be free and to be us. The gods didn’t like that, they wanted to keep being worshipped and now here we are chasing the sun. Hoping that somewhere under its mercies, our soulmates are there... waiting and hoping just like we are.
