expressions: soulmates
sunday, july 21, 2002


saxy was late for an appointment. i was a math tutor at our city college and his second attempt at a tutor. i've found in math you get two kinds of tutors: those who know what they are doing, but make horid tutors because they can't break what they're doing togn enough for students to understand; and those who can simplify the process and give the steps. the latter lead the students through finding the solutions, the former show how to find the solution by solving a problem and think that's all there is to tutoring. saxy had been subjected to the first type and was looking for something else. i ended up being that something else.

15 minutes late.

he was lucky i was there at all. in fact, i had packed up to go.

he was more lucky that i agreed to take the appointment anyway. as i recall, i had studying to do.

tutors and tutees are not supposed to get involved. but we found ourselves powerfully drawn to each other. our commonalities were few, we both liked gaming and music, but somehow we hooked up. i gave him my number, he called on a game night, we began meeting in the quad between classes. we hid it from the tutoring office...sort of. seems most of the staff suspected long before i finally had to deny him as an official tutoring student. apparently he stopped going. someone else, a stranger, figured out we were in love before we realized it ourselves.

we dated for 6 months then were engaged. we were married on new year's eve 9 months after we met.

it's been a rocky road for us since, we've almost divorced once, but he is my soulmate. it's a link that is both a blessing and a curse. you love this person so much, he or she is so much a part of you, that you cannot live without him or her even if it's best to do so. no one else compares. soulmates, i have discovered, don't always fit "perfectly," and where the edges don't quite match can rub raw sometimes. being a soulmate doesn't take the work out of the relationship, it makes it harder. but it's worth it.

because i love him very, very much.