Dear Soulmate,
I believe it was in the opening scene of the movie Bridget Jones’s Diary where leading lady Bridget Jones (played by Renee Zellweger) delivers the line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.” Although this is a modern spin off of the first lines in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the context holds true.
Perhaps you may read into this more optimistically, believing that it is not possible for life’s equilibriuim to always remain belanced between the good and bad events, but that it lends its balance in favor of the good. But life simply does not work like this. With the sun there will inevitably come clouds.
Needless to say Vermont was not the same as I remembered it being every Thanksgiving that came before. It was not how I used to see it, crossing the river at the state line to be greeted by the remains of foliage ablaze in their end of the season glow. No covered bridges to drive through beneath a roaring tumbling current.
It was not the same in that there was someone missing. Someone who sat at the head of the table, who ran the show, who basted the turkey, who sliced the pumpkin pie. Who opened the front door.
In the absence of this person, there was nowhere to go for the holiday. Like boats adrift on the sea without wind, I felt powerless to move in any direction. Despite this sweeping change of tradition, I found myself around a new table and raised my glass anyway, as promised, in gratitude.
The way things used to be is the story of who I am. It is a beautiful one, too. It is one you will read when you look in my eyes. Without even saying a word you will know how wonderful my family is, how thankful I am to have a beautiful home, how mysteriously captivated I am by the changing seasons and how incredibly lucky I am to have found you.
Only then will you know how spectacularly whole life can be.
All my love, R
letters2soulmate 