I have often found myself throughout my small existence chasing after the idea that a soulmate is a singular thing. You go on social media and see people posting about their relationships with their significant others with captions like,”my soulmate, my forever,” and it makes you believe that each and every one of us was put on this planet in order to find our other half. But what if in fact, we’re not broken into two parts? What if we’re just a little incomplete instead?

In the times where I am hollow and empty and the world has sucked every last bit of happiness out of me, I imagine what it would be like to find my “other half,” to be fixed into one whole instead of two. He’s tall, with intense features that seem to be a little uneven, but were crafted with the most excellent grace and eloquence of a sculptor. The kindness of his eyes have the power to make you feel like anything that you imagined in your wildest dreams has the potential to come true. Everything else on the outside of him is different in its own unique way, but his looks make you feel comfortable, like you’ve seen him a million times before. And that’s just on the outside.

The thing that’s truly the most remarkable about him is the way his soul shines in every single place he goes. He can laugh with you and go on the craziest adventures, but he also has such a way with words that any conversation will never go dry. I would feel safe with him, with a person like that, but sadly he doesn’t exist. He’s just a figment of my imagination, and in some ways he’s a reflection of the person I wish I could be to other people. I wish I could have a soul that has that kind of power to shine, and maybe I even do. Unfortunately though I’ll never have the chance to know this for sure, that is if I continue to judge myself by the physical traits I possess, rather than all the good things that are found within me.

Another thing I do sometimes, to get my mind off of everything in my life, is go on Tumblr and read the words of other people’s lives to get some perspective. It somehow always makes me feel a lot better to get some insight from others and ultimately saves me from another day of feeling lonely. One day while scrolling through my feed, I came across a quote about soulmates. It was a picture of a little yellow “hello note” that was titled “to: self, date: 1/15/14” and it read in pretty plain handwriting:

“You’ll have more than one soulmate in life, for there are different ones for different things. There are musical taste soulmates, friend soulmates, let’s-get-coffee-together-everyday soulmates, artist soulmates, etc.,etc. The romantic soulmate is only one aspect of this notion. Never forget that.”

And now that I’ve read it for the first, second, third time, it’s something I won’t be able to unsee and it will never leave me. This quote made me realize that a soulmate doesn’t have to be your significant other, or someone you’re in love with, but rather a person that has a powerful connection with you one way or another. A soulmate can be someone who even helps you pass the time and get through the day.

The difference between just another person, and a soulmate, is that a soulmate will stick with you for the rest of your life, no matter where either of you are. Time will eventually be the testament of this truth. There have been so many “people” that have hurt me in ways unimaginable to them. I let these kinds of “people” hurt me over and over again to the point where I had believed that the whole of my soul had been picked away at and gone forever. But time was eventually the thing that has always allowed my soul to heal the most, and time is what told me that the people who had hurt me were just “people” and not my soulmates. I have been wounded from this process more times than I can count, but in the end, time is the one that has also always placed the soulmates in my life to help on the path to recovery.

I have exchanged little parts of myself with all of the soulmates throughout my existence, and in return they’ve given me a part of themself too. So in essence, I was never just a half of a person, looking for someone to make me whole, but rather just slightly incomplete, and waiting for a culmination of others that have the power to build me up.

To all of my soulmates, you know who you are. There’s the best-friends-for-life soulmates, the sarcastic sense of humor soulmates, the laugh at my bad jokes soulmates, the we need a Dunkin run soulmates, the same music taste soulmates, the shared passion soulmates, and plenty, plenty more. Maybe, just maybe, one day I will even be lucky enough to find the romantic kind of soulmates, but that will only be one aspect of this notion.

I’m not saying you should stop chasing the dream of finding your perfect match, your “other half." But when you’re lost and so far gone from the person you used to be, look around at all of the wonderful soulmates who saw something special in you. Something special enough that they were able to see past your physical being and straight into the very depths of your soul. That’s the real reason they took the time to connect with you, so they could feel something special, too.