Here is the next installment of our story. For those of you who are new to this website, please note that the story begins with the earliest posts on this blog. So, you might want to read from oldest to newest. The installments are numbered in the title line.
----(Julia's story)
Today (as I write this, it's November 7, 2005) is the 8-year anniversary of a major turning point in Rick's and my early relationship (see the last installment to see what happened), so it seems fitting that I’d finally get around to adding a chapter to the “soulmate saga” today. This time of year, I’m inclined to go back into my files of “Rick mail” and enjoy that magical time again through our writings. He and I both kept every email that passed between us—and, in fact, we keep all the emails we exchange to this day!
As I read the ones from November 7th, 1997, (there are 13 from that day in my files—we were prolific!), it brings back the memories of how my willingness to sacrifice our relationship in order to be in integrity brought such immense energy and clarity and power. At first, even though he’d admitted he’d rather be with me, I was encouraging him to deal with his relationship so that if it was meant to continue, they could continue with integrity. Here are some snippets of our exchange that day:
----
Julia:
Yes, OF COURSE you would rather be with me—for now I am the part of you you like the best about yourself. But sooner or later the "uutsy" parts of our relationship—the stuff which reflects what you like least about yourself—is bound to show up. Maybe this is the beginning of that period as I seem to have "lit up" a space in you which you did not want to look at--the part that is afraid of honesty's power to affect others.
Rick:
It does not change what I know. That is the piece of my being afraid that I did not say on the phone last night. You are doing your best to help us get to a more stable, more buddy-based place to be, and I'm swallowing my tongue because I don't want to spoil the plan. Don't worry, I will do everything I can to be your buddy. I needed, this morning as I read your note, to say this, though. You are everything I never knew I always wanted.
Julia:
I say this without fear you will think me conceited: I know that I am that to you. It is one reason why it has been frustrating for me that you had not, until last night, expressed any real doubts about your relationship with (girlfriend’s name). It is too big a piece of reality to keep pretending about. It must be a factor in how you proceed with her, not that it needs to split you apart, but it is something which you need to look at about yourself and for yourself so that you can bring the truth of yourself into your relationship with her. And with me.
It was good to hear you admit that you feel scared about (girlfriend’s) insecurities—I want you to be real with me—which is tantamount to being real with yourself. I am hoping that you will always remain honest with yourself and true to yourself when it comes to (girlfriend). It is the only way to help her. Loving her, but not giving up who you are to cater to her insecurities is the only way in the long run. You don't want to spend your life trying to convince someone of something that has to come from within her—that she is worthy. If she is not up to being really, really honest, then she is not--your relationship is not—what either of you need.
Rick:
I know. And, more than anything, I'm scared of the hurt. Not for me... somehow, pain and I became so well-acquainted in my late teens and early twenties that I know I can handle it. I see too much hurt... too much pain, and my name right out front on the marquee: Pain, starring Rick Hamrick. This has always been the hardest thing for me to do: do what is right for me, knowing that it will hurt someone else. Instead, I try to avoid the infliction and take it on, myself.
Julia:
Wow. He tries to be a super-hero. "I can withstand the pain! I will protect all from their feelings and their growth opportunities so that I won't have to bear the pain of seeing their pain!" I know you see the bogus-ness in that. The ironic part is their pain is going to be their pain in the end, just all saved up for them in a huge wallop instead of in manageable doses they can deal with as it comes...
If your relationship is really going to work past the first blush of discovery and fascination and infatuation, you had better--both of you--be ready to give it all up at any minute in order to let the Truth have its way. That, in my opinion, is the only way your (or any other) relationship has any chance at all of being a Big-Love caliber relationship—which I know you are VERY capable of and ready for—at least that is my projection in the matter.
----
Indeed, he was ready. I will share how we got from the “Julia as buddy/relationship coach” phase, to the “We have GOT to be together” phase in the next installment.
How true the old saying is, “If you love something, let it go free. If it is yours, it will return to you...” I certainly found that out on Nov. 7, 1997. It’s one of the most powerful lessons I ever learned. That, and that taking a stand for the truth—for integrity—is a gigantic frequency booster! I was one joyful woman that day! While I was coaching him about his relationship from a very clear space, I knew deep in my heart that he was my soulmate and that ours was "Big Love."
----(Rick's story)
While Julia goes for the higher vision of what we were up to at this time in our relationship—and I was right there with her much of the time—there was still one little problem to be dealt with: I was in a relationship, even if by this point in the evolution of our (Julia’s and mine) relationship, I absolutely knew where I belonged. It wasn’t with the person I was with at the time.
I’ll admit right here in front of anyone who wanders by that the prospect of ending a relationship simply frightened me no end. Let’s face it, I was in my 40’s by the time Julia and I met, so it’s not like I had not already had a good many years of being in relationships with women. Here’s the key, though: not once in those 30 years of relationships had I been the one who decided it was over. Never.
There was a moment in my life when I was in my 20’s and talking with my best friend, when the realization hit me that I had not been in a relationship with a woman that I had instigated! I did manage to figure out that side of the relationship cycle—after all, that’s the fun part, when you first meet someone and decide you want to get to know each other better—and become active participant instead of leaf carried wherever the current goes. At some point we all have to reach a level of maturity where we are, at least at the human level, driving our lives some of the time (please note that this entire soliloquy is not coming from my Higher Self for the most part, but from my small, human, duality-living self, and that’s okay. I’m talking about a time in my life when I was much less able to stay with something higher for very long).
So, as Julia quoted in her description of that time, we had reached a point where I was professing my love for her, and she was steering me to complete what I was doing with integrity, whether that meant finding a way to remain with the person I was in relationship with, or finding a way to come out of it ethically and responsibly.
Not so coincidentally I have come to know, my then-girlfriend had been sick for a few days and had insisted that I not drive down to see her and help her (I’m a pretty good nurse, able to heat a can of soup or fix some dry toast without hurting myself or wrecking the kitchen, and able to comfort those in need without losing patients [sorry…it came out of the keyboard that way so it must be God making a joke]). While I was certainly willing to drive down (she lived 60 miles from me) and take care of her, she was quite insistent that I not do so.
Here we were at this pause in everyone’s life who was intimately involved with this little drama: my girlfriend sick and not wanting to see me, my soulmate (Julia) declining yet to accept the love I was fully committed to offering her until she did, and me wondering what the heck I was doing in the driver’s seat! At that moment, I knew why I had let events take their own course so many times in the past: it beat the heck out of steering when the road was unfamiliar and had no guardrails to keep things headed in the right direction. Scary? You bet!
No doubt, regardless of how much I knew of it at the time, there was Higher Wisdom at work in this case. There always is, if we are willing to be quiet and hear the soft persistent voice speaking from our hearts.
All was in readiness finally. Julia was coaching me to act in integrity, my girlfriend was finally willing to have me come down and have dinner with her, and I was preparing for an experience I had never had in my many years on the planet.
I’ll pick up from here when Julia is next inspired to continue the story!
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