Twin Flames - The One That Came Before
Into my heart...
Today I need to write about Xavier. I had no idea that I would be writing about him, until the words and the emotions literally exploded into my heart, demanding to be heard. Originally, I’d planned to write about twin flame telepathy, but that’s not important now. That can wait. Because my soul has something to say about someone who will always be very important to me.
The truth is, that since my twin’s arrival, I have carelessly swept Xavier to one side. At first, this was because the love for my twin was so consuming it was all I saw, then after my twin left, it was because I could not face the grief of those two losses combined. There had been a dagger in my heart for years from Xavier’s death, and losing Jed caused the dagger to slice straight through me. There was simply nothing left of me. The grief and fear and pain that raged in me was all for my twin. There was no space or air for me to contain thoughts of anyone else.
The shape and the fall
This morning, I casually asked my daughter whether you definitely still had to wear black to a funeral? And she said, yes, she thought so. Well, in a heartbeat I was back in the bedroom of my old house on the morning of Xavier’s funeral. I remember that day so clearly. I remember the shape and the fall and the blackness of the dress I was wearing. I remember the way my hands trembled as I tried to make myself look beautiful for him. All the emotion came back, all of the love, all of the pain, and all of the sorrow.
You see, although things were complicated between us while he was here, after he died, all the walls between us came tumbling down. He made his presence known to me in so many ways. He was beautiful, artistic, and unique. He was Xavier. And I loved him. I really loved him. I always felt so lucky to have known of this love. I knew our souls had been together before, and that we had a special and death-defying bond. Friends would say to me, ‘I haven’t had the type of love like you’ve had with Xavier,’ and I would feel both blessed and punished at the same time, because he was gone.
Guardian angel
From the day of the funeral onwards, he let me know that he hadn’t left me. We had a special song that played on the radio while I was getting ready, and that song became his calling card. It would play at the most amazing and poignant times. Even now, when I hear those first few notes, I get a funny feeling inside. I always will. He was my guardian angel throughout the whole time that I was with the sociopath. His strength was my strength. His love was almost overwhelming at times, and the mystical, wonderful things that would take place to confirm his presence were always filled with grace.
An artist just like him
In the years that followed Xavier's death, I had some readings with an amazing medium called Max. They took place over the phone, which made them all the more astonishing for their astounding depth and accuracy. Xavier would come through to me providing precise and detailed information, and I would be completely moved and blown away. The last reading I ever had with Max was around four or five months before I met my twin. In the reading, Xavier said something that upset me. He said that I was going to meet someone else through my book. (I was writing a book about our afterlife contact.) He also said that I would know that I loved this man straightaway; in fact, I would love him deeply and intensely. He said that this man would be an artist just like him, (Xavier was a painter), and that the name ‘Henry’ would be important. Max even double checked that bit with Xavier, and then confirmed to me again that it was ‘definitely Henry.’
To be honest, I felt incredibly hurt. How could Xavier tell me that I would love someone as powerfully as I had him? And how on earth would I meet someone through the book? No-one even knew about the book, and I didn’t belong to any writing groups. In the end, I kind of dismissed that part of the reading and forgot all about it. I decided that Max had obviously got that bit wrong. I even said to my mum, ‘Seriously, can you see me going out with someone called Henry?’
The penny drops
Anyway, I’d forgotten all about the reading until a couple of weeks after I met my twin. You would think that the penny might have dropped earlier considering that we met at the one and only writing festival I’d ever attended, and because I did love him immediately and overwhelmingly. But no, the penny dropped when Jed signed a message to me with his full name, and it turned out Henry was his middle name. I think my mouth actually dropped open, and I messaged back saying ‘You’re not going to believe this but…’ And then, of course, I found out that he was an artist too. It seemed to freak him out a bit, if I’m honest, so we never talked about it again.
After Jed went away, I expected Xavier to swoop forth with the answers just like he’d always done, but there was only silence. I understand that now. He couldn’t teach me about my own soul. He couldn’t possibly know what words to use to describe the path I was on. There was nothing he could do to either help me or save me. I was in this alone.
All the magic
A few months ago, I talked to Xavier out loud while I was driving my car. I needed to tell him that I hadn’t forgotten him; that I hadn’t forgotten our bond or our love, but that I just couldn’t delve into that sorrow or grief anymore because of the huge loss of Jed. I felt him with me, then, and I knew that all the magic that we had shared would never be forgotten. I felt his peace and his understanding. I felt guilty that I knew, that he knew, I loved Jed more than him, but somehow I knew that was okay too, and that he’d known all along this would come to pass. Every time that I’d promised undying love, he’d known exactly what was going to take place in my life. It was only me that hadn’t seen it coming.
When I got home, I went upstairs and sat on my bed. I sat there quietly for a while, and then I switched on the radio and our song played, and I wept. I wept for all that had been between us and for the beauty of our communication. I cried because he hadn’t forgotten me, even at a time when I had so clearly forgotten him. I cried because I hadn’t heard our song in a long while, and yet it played at the perfect time, just like it always had.
Unspoken
Even though we reconnected that day, yet again, the love and the memories seeped slowly into the background, until this morning, when it all came flooding back. ‘How could I lose them both?’ My ego wanted to cry out to the heavens. ‘How could I be gifted such mighty loves and then have them both taken from me in such different ways?' I listened to those thoughts echo in my head, unspoken, but I gave them permission to be. I understood their origins and their entitlement to feel cheated. I understood their right to believe in the dream of separation.
I have denied my love for Xavier for a number of reasons. One reason is that no matter how extraordinary a soulmate bond is, it is eclipsed (for want of a better word) by coming face to face with yourself. This is understandable. A soulmate stands next to us. We are incredibly close. We are incredibly similar. We are birthed from the same majestic pool of beingness, but we are not the same. We are not identical. We have had many adventures together over many lifetimes, and we have loved deeply and passionately, but he is not the very same drop of God that makes up my own soul spark.
The only one
The second reason I have suppressed the love is through fear of hurting Jed. I even tried to convince myself that maybe I’d never really loved Xavier, just so I could promise my twin that he was, and always had been, the only one. I know it deeply hurt my twin to hear about Xavier. He actually read a few chapters of the book and said that, although he loved my writing and always would, he could not bring himself to read more of it. ‘How would you feel if I had a dead lover?’ he asked me once. I knew exactly how I would feel, as I’d already pictured it in my head. I’d even given her a name - Elizabeth. I thought it sounded suitably saintly. I imagined what it would be like to wonder who he loved the most? Me or Elizabeth? Who would he choose to be with if she were still alive?
Teaching love
The other fear that I secretly harboured was that a soulmate would suddenly rock up in my twin’s life, just to even the score. But now I understand these things more fully. The truth is that my soul happens to be in two bodies, which means that we are Xavier’s soulmate. That’s why Xavier has never been jealous. That’s why he was able to tell me about Jed’s arrival, because he felt no sense of loss or fear. How could he fear me falling in love with myself? It’s the most natural thing in the world. Many people ridicule the concept of twin flames because they think that God would not create us with a ‘missing piece,’ and that God would not create us to be 'incomplete.' But the last thing that we are is incomplete. And we don’t have a missing piece. We have our own soul; one soul, that has been projected into two different bodies for the simple but profound act of teaching love. And this is only an illusory perception, a trick of the light, really.
I understand now that love should not be suppressed in any way, shape, or form. I can only set the love between my twin and I free, if I set all love free. And I loved Xavier. One day, if my memoir is published, you will see how much I loved him, and how losing him tore me apart, but you will also see how finding my twin gave me the entire universe within myself. You will see that I went from knowing what it was to stand on a mountain plain, to standing on top of all of creation. You will see that within this twin flame love is everything. It contains all love and nobody has to be left on the outside. Nobody has to be discounted or forgotten. No particle of myself needs to be quashed, forbidden, or excluded.
A thousand things
I have wondered what would happen if by some miracle Xavier did come back. What if in this time of physical separation from my twin, Xavier returned? What if he pulled me into his arms and promised me a thousand things? What would my heart have me say and do in such a situation? A situation that I once yearned for with all of my being.
I would say, ‘I love you, Xavier, truly I do. I love you as a part of myself; a part of myself that I have danced with many times. But I have remembered who I am. I have seen the face of love, and it turned out to be my own. I have known what it is to tremble in the dark with shameless longing, to be willing to crawl through hell to find someone. I have known the stars and the moon and the everything. I have known of it, and I have loved it, and now there is nothing but this. And I understand that I don’t belong to you, any more than you ever belonged to me. I belong to myself.' And Xavier would smile. He would smile and he would brush my hair back so very gently from my eyes. And he would say, ‘You know who I am now. I am the one that came before. I am the part of you that came to lead you back to yourself.’
There is a plan
Xavier was my first taste of remembering myself, I know that now, and for some reason he had to leave. It still really hurts that he had to leave. Jed was the entirety of me remembering myself, I know that now too, and for some reason he also had to leave. It still really hurts that he had to leave. It aches and it crushes and it maims and it wounds. It wounds me. But that’s just the way life goes sometimes. People have to leave. There is a plan, there is fate, and there is destiny. But the driving force behind all of those things is love. And there has been so much love. And all of it has counted.
I have visited dew-drenched glades on silvery-green mountain tops. I have walked along moonlit, undiscovered beaches. I have been shown the edge and the breadth and the utter truth of love. I have been delivered into such sweet tenderness that it makes my heart ache with gratitude. This love cannot be taken back or stolen away. It cannot be undone or untied. Words and kisses and touches cannot be removed from the soul’s memory. They become a part of us; a part of our story.
I have followed a path; a rocky, painful, beautiful, jagged path, and it led me here. It led me to my twin. It still leads to my twin, because no matter the steps taken or the direction chosen, it will always, always, lead back to us. There is nowhere else.
