"I said,
LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!" OM evil-eyed me so fiercely
I practically peed myself.
"I...."
She
rolled her eyes and her face slowly softened. "Just snap
your fingers for us, Georgie..." OM said in her most congenial
voice, suddenly all loving-smiles. "Please," she added for
good measure, but that part definitely strained the digital
smile so that it rapidly vibrated between obsequiously angelic
to connivingly maniacal. "That's a good boy. Come on, Georgie.
You can do it. Just put your middle finger on your thumb..."
I had
someplace I wanted to put my middle finger, but instead
I found myself doing as she'd commanded.
I snapped
my fingers and...
Maya
and I were suddenly standing, pressed together in the middle
of a packed-to-the-rafters nightclub. Everyone was gyrating
like crazy around us, squishing us closer, and the music
was so loud my insides felt like they were vibrating out
my ears.
Part
of me realized this could be the point where the awkwardness
of the moment would cause the awkwardness of our general
situation to melt away, and finally bring us to that next
chapter in our love story I kept wishing we could get to.
The one where doubts and insecurities are forgotten in an
all-telling silent understanding glance. And the world would
fade away and we'd be alone, just the two of us, oblivious
to the outside world, lost in our moment of eternal bliss.
Except
the look Maya was giving me was really heavy on the awkward
and really light on the understanding. The awkwardness grew.
"We
need to talk," Maya screamed. I couldn't hear her of course,
because of the roar of the nightclub, but her look conveyed
her meaning with crystal clarity. And those words in any
decibel range were never ones you wanted to hear.
"Snap
your fingers, Georgie!"
OM's
voice somehow cut menacingly through the noise. Without
questioning, I found myself doing as I was told.
I blinked
and noticed Maya and I were now sitting at a romantic candlelit
table. We seemed to be alone as except for our illuminated
faces in the candlelight's glow, everything around us was
cloaked in darkness. I looked up at Maya's expectant gaze.
"Well,
kiss her already!"
I startled
at OM's words, and strained to see where they were coming
from.
"Hello.
Down here," OM yelled as my back pocket's buzz grew into
a jolting electric shock.
I pulled
the phone out and saw OM's scary-face glaring at us. "Kiss
her, Georgie!" she growled.
Maya
reached over and grabbed the phone from my hands without
breaking our locked gaze. Still without blinking she turned
the phone off.
The
silence grew as she stared at me. I had no idea what she
was thinking.
"I
don't understand any of this," Maya finally sighed, and
her angry gaze suddenly melted into thoughtful sadness.
"How can OM claim we're soulmates? How can you love ME...
you don't even know me. You actually don't even know my
name. Or what I really look like. What I do day to day in
my life. What I dream. What I wish for... At best, you could
only love the idea of me."
I opened
my mouth to force into words one of the thousand thoughts
that ran through my mind. Like maybe we really could be
soulmates. Maybe neither of us would ever have to be alone
again. Maybe we could just CHOOSE to live happily ever after,
and keep choosing it every moment of our lives.
"It's
like an arranged marriage orchestrated by the universe,"
Maya continued before any words could actually spew from
my lips. "I'm supposed to love you because we're in a cosmic
story that says we're supposed to love each other... A story
that you supposedly control by the way!"
I stared
dumfounded, completely at a loss. OM claimed this was my
universe and my rules, and yet even here in that best-case-scenario
universe, I still didn't seem to know what's going on or
how to get my supposed-actual soulmate to see me as her
soulmate.
Good
grief. If there really was some baseline-timeline-reallife
out there I was actually living, how could I even stand
a chance of finding her, and if I did, convince her we could
be soulmates, when I'm sure I'm not even half the man I
want to be there in the realworld. If I can't do it here
where I can be whatever I want to be and make whatever I
want to happen happen...
The
insights started flying through my mind. I realized I don't
want a "my rules - my universe" universe. I want an "our
universe - our rules" one, where we would create our story
together, one day at a time.
And
suddenly everything OM had been hinting at started to make
sense. This life I seemed to be living was just "a story"
that I could control. And if I could tell it perfectly,
the real-life her out there could read it and see the real
me. And that would convince her to take a chance to create
a best-life together with me...
YES!
So, what can i say or do here in a perfect story to make
her find me out there in our real-lives. I've got to whip
us up some fantastic adventures that we'd share together.
No.
It's got to be a fun Rom-Com. That's the way to go. With
lots of super-romantic big gestures.
But...
that would just be false advertising, wouldn't it? I mean
I wouldn't necessarily want her to think I thought we could
actually have fantastical adventures in a mundane-day-to-day
world.
That's
when I realized, what I really had to show her in the perfect
story was my deepest essence. The truths that made me who
I really was, deep down inside.
The
insights fleetingly uncovered during fourteen years of floating
alone in space seemed to coalesce into one singular epiphany
about what would unite my soulmate and me in a perfect story
that would win her reallife heart.
We
would share a dream of a utopian world of peace and hope
and possibility. Even if that vision couldn't ever come
true, except in our imaginations and dreams, it was worth
imagining. It was worth sharing. And that vision would be
the focus of a shared life of mission and purpose that we
would create together.
We'd
do all the day-to-day mundane things ordinary couples do,
sure, but our shared mission and purpose would be our guiding
and uniting vision. We would make time each day to unleash
our creativity and synergistically manifest and co-create
tangible works that tried to capture our shared dream. That
shared focus would give us the strength to see every mundane
interaction with the world as an opportunity to spread some
aspect of that shared dream.
Living
happily ever after together would be a choice we'd make,
every morning when we'd open our eyes and wake up together,
and sealed with a kiss every night when we'd go to sleep
to find each other in our dreams.
I think
I must have said that last bit out loud. Or maybe the whole
soliloquy. Or maybe now she really could read my mind, because
when I looked into Maya's eyes they were smiling. No more
doubt. No more questions. Just hope. And love.
"You
know what," she burst out. "Screw it. I'm tired of being
alone. We're stuck here together in this crazy dream. It's
our universe. Let's decide to be soulmates and choose to
live happily ever after, one moment at a time," she joyfully
exclaimed.
"Oh
boy!" my conscience screamed, chidingly accusing me of grossly
abusing my 'My-Universe-My-Rules'-powers.
"Did
I do that?" I urkeled nervously. I didn't mean to, but maybe
I did somehow change Maya's mind about me without her knowing
it?
But
then Maya leaned in and kissed me, and I forgot to feel
guilty.
