On this week in 2017, I met the man who I am marrying in two weeks.
Well, not exactly.
It all depends on your conception of what it means to “meet” someone. Have you met when you share names with one another? Or have you met when you have your first conversation? Have you met if you only bumped into one another on the street? I don’t have answers to any of these questions.
Currently, the corner of TikTok that I occupy is abuzz with conversation about the “invisible string theory,” which is the idea that we will continue to run into someone or share some proximity (shared friends, being in the same place at the same time, etc.) until we are ready to invite them into our lives. Some of the examples of the phenomenon that I have seen on TikTok (written in the format, “Our invisible string is…”) are heartwarming; some are hilarious. One video that I saw shared that a woman’s partner’s parents had been friends with her parents decades in the past, and they didn’t know until they started dating. Another special example shared that the person’s future spouse was in the background of one of their childhood pictures from Disney World. In my personal favorite “invisible string” video, the speaker shared that her husband used to egg cars when he was a teenager and an egg once flew through her open window and she never knew who threw it until her husband recounted the story of egging a car that had a window rolled down years later.
Naturally, I had to create my own “invisible string” video on TikTok. I don’t know that it is possible to share a video to Substack, so I am copying the text from my video below:
Our invisible string is that we lived in the same college dorm before we “met” a year later. We actually met in an elevator on election night 2016. I watched him drink milk straight out of a jug. He handed me the half-full box of cookies in his hands because “I looked like I needed them more.” We didn’t remember this day until we were already dating over a year later.
So there you have it. Whether Ian and I met during the first week of November in 2016 or the last week of September in 2017 (in a similarly funny ordeal that need not be rehashed on the internet) is open for debate. What I do know is that my heart was open in 2017 in ways that it had not been in 2016. I still had lessons to learn, and at the time that we met again I was looking for a friend who could understand me in the way that he alone could. Right person, wrong time and then right person, right time. I have been insanely lucky.
All of this invisible string discussion leads me into the topic at hand: soulmates. Are they real? My default answer has always been no. I think that there are many people in your life with whom you are compatible, and then, owing to some varying concoction of coincidence and choice, you can wind up spending the rest of your life with them, or not. It is terribly unromantic, but Ian agrees with me. We are not soulmates but two very compatible individuals who have chosen to commit to one another.
That being said, while I do not believe in soulmates, I do believe in kindred spirits, and I believe that there are lots of them. When I was a little girl, I used to think that souls were carried around in God’s pocket, and when a baby was born, a soul would be hurled into its body like a lightning bolt. Funny concept, I know. I hadn’t thought about this childhood idea of mine until I learned that Ian and I had back-to-back birthdays and caught myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, we had been in God’s pocket together. Maybe, before we were sent down into the same state less than 24 hours apart from one another, our souls brushed against each other for just a minute–just enough that we would later be able to recognize one another.
At 25, I do not think of souls and fate in nearly the same way that I did at 19, but I do still believe that there is something beyond compatibility that happens when I meet someone and we just click. Here are some examples of kindred spirits and invisible strings in my life that quickly come to mind:
When I was 14, I started talking to a girl in my gym class who liked a TV show that I also liked. She transferred schools the following year, but we became penpals of a sort, exchanging emails, stories, and poems for the next 10+ years. She is someone who I have always called my “soul friend.”
When I was 18, I started working in an office, and the person who taught me to answer the office phone became one of the most influential people in my whole entire life. She is a best friend, a support, and an encouragement to me in all stages of my life. She introduced me to a whole new friend group and was the best wingman ever in setting me up with my soon-to-be husband. She is set to officiate my wedding. And what is interesting in this case–invisible string theory incoming!--is that we had multiple English, linguistics, and Spanish classes together in which we could have met if I hadn’t found her in that first office job of mine.
When I was 17 and my older sister was 19, she met a guy at a restaurant at the beach. That chance encounter led to a relationship, which then led to a wedding, which then led to the two little girls who I am lucky enough to call my nieces. Looking into two little pairs of blue eyes for the first time, I felt that I had known and loved them both since before they were born–and it was someone else’s invisible string that brought them to me.
Also when I was 17, I arbitrarily chose a bedroom in my freshman dorm. I befriended two guys who lived across the hall, and they introduced me to a group of friends that I maintain to this day. Connections in this group of friends and a domino effect of events landed me in the town that I now call home.
When I was 23, I began a very taxing job. The coworker who had the office beside mine became an amazing support system, friend, and confidant. Many a day was spent in her office, sipping coffee and gossiping between my sessions. She made Wheeling feel like home to me and brought light to a very difficult time. We call each other “bosom friends” rather than kindred spirits out of a mutual love for Anne of Green Gables.
When I was 22, I started a graduate program that I ultimately wish I hadn’t, but it led me to some of my best friends in the whole world, including a friend who has a sun tattoo in the exact spot that I have a moon tattoo (tell me that isn’t fate) and a friend with whom I have so much in common–book loving, personalities, common life experiences–that we have called ourselves the same person in different fonts.
When I was 14, a girl hit me in the back of the head with her trumpet, which somehow led to a triad of friends that I have maintained for over a decade. One of these friends moved to Spain for a time, and when the other friend and I went to visit her, I sat by a volcano and thought to myself, “Wow. We are a long way from the high school band room.” This friend also recently had the idea to get the same tattoo (three stars) in the same place (wrist) as me, which is something we will be doing together. Kindred spirits.
I could go on and on about examples of people who landed in my life by chance or by fate and have become extraordinarily important to me, but I will wrap this up with one last anecdote. During the summer of 2019, I worked as an Energy Express mentor with a classroom of six- and seven-year-olds. One activity that we did was make a web on the floor by rolling yarn back and forth to one another and taping off strands. I think that my invisible string does not only tie me to my romantic partner but to all of the friends and family who make my life special. And how exciting it is to think about what future additions to my web of connections are waiting to make themselves known.
What do you think about soul mates? Kindred spirits? The invisible string theory? I would love to know.
I leave you with a screenshot of the scene in Howl’s Moving Castle when Howl and Sophie meet for the first time that reset something in my brain:
Until Next Time,
Alexa
Alexa I am extremely excited to see what the future holds for you.
I’m also not a soulmates person, but I totally feel the vibes of kindred spirits or bosom friends (Anne of Green Gables hive, RISE!!!). Our little college gang will forever be among my kindred spirits!
There are some people I immediately connect with in ways I never can with others, and I feel like becoming close with these folks is part fate and part luck with a sprinkle of Taylor Swift-style masterminding on top.