Listen to the Universe

It was Sunday, October 23rd, which was just six days before the DC Witches' Ball.  I was taking a break from prepping for the gala with a bottle of wine, a frozen dinner, and the premiere of the new ABC show Once Upon a Time.  The plot surrounds Snow White and Prince Charming and how the Evil Queen stole their happily ever after and made it into her own.  It made me realize that I had forgotten about the notion of happily ever after.  I wondered where my happily ever after had gone. I didn't think it would ever come.

I was in what I thought was a happy relationship with the man I thought I was going to marry down the road when he finished pharmacy school and established himself. We met while working at the TV station I've been working at for more than five years. He wasn't Pagan, and he no longer came to Pagan events whether I organized them or not. He was a great guy and as supportive as he could stand to be. He listened to me talk about my work, but he didn't want to be near the Pagans. I couldn't blame him after all the times he was asked to be the sober person to help me take the drunk Pagans home around the corner from the event. Or, after all of the meltdowns he witnessed from people who came into my life through my work as an organizer.

You see, I was dying inside.  Though I was in a relationship, I was so alone. I was drowning in obligation. I felt like I gave so much of myself to others, but everyday was a struggle for me to get through. I do very well for what I do in television, but was still drowning in the constant realization that I didn't have enough money to make it living as an adult on my own.  I couldn't see how to get out of that place.  I couldn't turn to my partner for help.  The world was becoming greyer and I cared less and less about the future. I had basically given up on my life.  I didn't know what would become of me.

I was praying for someone to save me. I was praying for a spiritual partner who would love to share my work. I was praying for a life partner with whom I could take the next step in life and become a safe and secure family. These are prayers that I had said for years. I would rush onto the next thing, wanting relief, and feel this overwhelming urge to fall to my knees in the grass and cry out to the Goddess, the Great Mother, the Universe for help.

So, when I sat and watched the premiere of Once Upon a Time, I wondered what happened to my happily ever after.

That week, I drank a lot of wine to get through the stress of feeling so alone preparing for the DC Witches' Ball. Things needed bought, things needed made, printing needed to be done, organization needed to happen. After a seven hour set up and so many things gonig wrong, we packed up the event and got out onto the dance floor. I got through it with the smiling faces of my friends. They tried to make sure that I ate and got enough wine to drink. All in all, the event was a success, and so many people seemed to have fun.

One of those smiling friends was Sean Bennett. I met Sean when he walked into a Firefly Wicca 3 class at my apartment during the first week of October in 2009. We parted ways for a bit in 2010, but reconnected at the beginning of this year. From that point on, we were thick as thieves. We worked together in Firefly DC Pagan meetup, with the DC Order of Bards Ovates and Druids, as the kids coordinators of the Northern Virginia Pagan Pride Day, and as governors of the Open Hearth Foundation. After the beginning of October, a bunch of us started hanging out and playing board games on Sunday nights.

After everyone else had left the Witches' Ball after party in the OHF suite, Sean and I sat talking on the couch. We had shared a tipsy, but dazzling couple of dances on the floor during the event, and a tipsy Iris held Sean's hand at the after party. While chatting on the couch, Sean expressed concern that our friends had seen us holding hands.

It just came out of my mouth as if I was stating a well-known fact. "Well, we know that I have feelings for you, and you have feelings for me."

But, I didn't consciously know that he had feelings for me. And, I didn't consciously know that I had feelings for him.  Verbalizing those feelings blew open the flood gates. We talked about how it was obvious to us and everyone else that he and I were spiritually connected. We wanted the exact same things from life.  We talked about what a life together would be like.  He stayed in the hotel room until 6:30am, not wanting to leave, but knowing that he couldn't stay with me. We both had significant others that we would be unfaithful to if he stayed the night. We exchanged a kiss that ripped through my body. He asked me for time to do the work necessary, and promised it would all work out in the end. I begged him to stay, knowing that if he left, I couldn't be the woman with feelings for him tomorrow. I was a woman who had a great long-term boyfriend that she had promised she would never leave again.

But, the next morning, my heart was tearing itself apart. I knew without a doubt that Sean was my soulmate. I hadn't believed that soulmates were real until that day.  My mind, body, and spirit burned for him. I couldn't find the place in my heart where I loved my boyfriend. It was in the process of burning away with the fire set the night before.  Everything had changed.  I had just woken up from a long, sad sleep.  It became obvious over the next couple of days that we couldn't stay away from each other. That it hurt to be apart from the person who made our spirit glow so brightly.

We were going back in our heads through all of these moments where the Universe had conspired to get us together, to show us our connection.  We had spent so much time either trying to get closer to be near the other or trying to stay away in fear of our feelings being obvious.  We both suppressed these feelings of needing to be near the other, feeling connected to the other, but did not allow them to be fully realized.  So many decisions, actions, and reactions were made with the other in mind.  It was blatantly obvious that I hadn't seen what the Universe put right in front of me.

The Universe had answered all of my prayers. My happily ever after consists of spending every moment I can with Sean, living in a spiritual home, working everyday to instill the greatest level of health in our lives.  It is a life full of laughter and passion.  It is a shared life where our purpose in life is the same.  It includes building community, helping other people be happy, meeting the needs of other people, and serving the community.  It is a life where we are both contributing to a stable, happy, and spiritual family.

But, there was a price.  We both had to cause pain in two very good people's lives.  We did everything we could to be honest and faithful to them while we prayed for them to result in peace and happiness despite the pain we would cause them.  So many times, people take what they think is the easy road--staying with their partners out of obligation, but putting themselves in a position to be unfaithful.  There's no easy way to be honest and true in a situation like this.  There is just being honest and true.  It's hard and it hurts everyone, but it's easier for everyone in the long run.

The spiritual lessons in all of this are profound.  When we are on the path we are supposed to be, so many things fall into place.  We vibrate happily and fully with our universal potential.  It is so much easier to work within the universal flow than against it.  There is always hope in the moments where we feel the most lost.  There are forces at work beyond our comprehension or understanding.  Getting to the right path often includes many challenging decisions and work, and it will be hard and painful now or destructive and devastating when pushed off to later.  Happily ever after does exist.