I Know Now

Her voice returns with understanding. She sees the tears, words and faithfulness she once could not read and recognizes love carried through fire. She is not saying another person gave her a soul. She understands that their encounter helped her see her own freedom again and name a bond that may outlive this lifetime.

After a long stretch in which the man spoke, fought and promised, her understanding receives space. This is neither a reward for a hero nor proof that every one of his gestures was right. The woman looks back at her masks, fear and falls and can finally read the presence that accompanied her through them. She recognizes words, tears and warnings as attempts to return her to her own soul. Fire, web and spider gather the previous journey and no longer belong only to his interpretation. She sees them too, names them and meets fear face to face. Their bond becomes mutual through that act. He cannot free her without her and she need not deny his love in order to remain free. Saying that he carried her can be heard as recognition of faithfulness rather than surrender of her strength. Finding his name also means finding her own voice and place. When she says soulmate, the word is no longer merely a romantic title left from childhood. It names a person through whom she came to know her own interior and before whom she can stand without a mask. The promise of another life does not dictate the form of the present. It trusts that a real imprint of love will remain even when its human form changes again.