9:43pm.

This is the first time today I have sat down!  My aching body is screaming at me! I took some Advil a little earlier, and now I am icing the back of my knee where the most pain is coming from. After I journal I will head to the hot tub. Oh boy will I head to the hot tub! I need it so desperately tonight.

Tonight’s journal is probably one of the toughest I’ve written in a long time. Only because I am in the biggest fight of faith!  Yes, I will share this story in a minute.  A chapter of this journey of faith I honestly don’t know what to think of. I need help from someone.  From the person that uses AOL, and has been on this journal since it began.  You know who you are……………..more than ever I need to know who you are, because the ambiguous happenings are truly tearing this girl’s heart out.  I always thought you were Soul Mate, but after this “birthday present” I received, I honestly no longer know.  I sit here tonight feeling as a fool, and yet, faith speaks a whole other story to me.  More on all of this in a moment.

Elizabeth came to town and met us all at Red Lobster. “Us all” being my core group of friends for years and years from the high school.  Donna, Linn, Sydney, Elizabeth and I.  We always referred to ourselves as “Lifetime Women,” and have been there for one another through so many things.  Birthdays we always celebrate, and since mine is this Wednesday, we all went out, Elizabeth driving the 4 hour trip home to  join us too.

As always it was a very good time.  We all caught up from last month, talked, laughed, made horrible jokes, and once again closed Red Lobster, our very favorite place.  The waitress sang to me some sort of Happy Birthday song, giving me a complimentary sundae.  We all splurged and had drinks before dinner, and tonight, achy as I feel, how good that “Very Berry Daiquiri” sounds!

Elizabeth came home with me and spent the night.  “G”, her hubby was here. He and Dell had gone out to one of their favorite tavern/restaurants for dinner.  They went to bed, Elizabeth and I sat up till after 1:00am, until neither of us could take it anymore.  I had all the electric candle lights and candles aglow,  and meditation/spa music playing on satellite radio via Direct TV (channel 856 for those with Direct TV).  We were talking heart to heart as we always do when we get to stay up so late, no one around, and a quiet atmosphere. It seemed last night we really had some heart to heart issues to discuss.

So, let’s begin with the story.

Elizabeth is like a sister to me. We always joke that we are sisters and people have actually thought we look alike.  We don’t, but I guess some think we do.  Neither of us have a sister, so a friendship as we have had has turned into some sort of sisterhood.  She’d do anything for me, I’d do anything for her.  On her 50^th birthday a few years ago, I decorated the whole office in black, I got a photo of her from college and made a poster of it, bought her buttons and filled her office with balloons. I made her day so special she said.  She always threatened to do the same for me, but I wouldn’t turn 50 for another 5 years.  And life changes.  My 50^th birthday neither of us were at the high school anymore, and she had moved away.  Still, she had to find a way to do something outlandishly special for me, and so the wheels began to spin, wondering what it was she could do?

Enter her hubby, “G”.  He is a fanatic record collector.  One day before my 50^th birthday last year he talked Elizabeth into going to a record show with him.  She wasn’t crazy about it, but decided to go anyway.  As he was looking around, she happened to look over on a rack and BAM!  Right there was an album with Soul Mate’s photo on it!  She COULDN’T believe it!  She walked over, picked it up, saw it was only $2, and bought it!  She didn’t know what to do with it, but she knew she had to have it.

She was telling “G” about it, that this group was one of my favorites and that I knew one of the guys from this band, that I had met him a few years ago, and he and I had hit it off.  “G” said, “That’s IT!  You should send the album cover to him, have him sign it so he can wish her a happy 50^th!   She’d freak out over that, wouldn’t she?”  Oh, Elizabeth was SO excited!  She knew a place Soul Mate played on a regular basis and decided to send it there with a note explaining it was my 50^th birthday and requesting he write a note to me for my birthday so she could surprise me!  She was SO excited because she had found the most special gift in the world to give me!  She was sure of it!! 

Remember, Elizabeth was with me when I met Soul Mate.  She has been with me whenever I have been around him, so she didn’t feel overly funny about doing this.  She sent it in plenty of time, and included a self-addressed envelope for him to get it back to me for my 50^th birthday, which was March 18, 2008.  (A year ago.)

My birthday came and went, and he never returned the album cover to her.  She was so disappointed.  Of course I knew nothing of this, it was still suppose to be a surprise.  Bless her heart, she kept it quiet, although it turns out our other core group of friends did know.

And she waited, and she waited, and the months went by, and never did my surprise get returned.  She had given up, and I guess wondered if he even got it. After all, things like that can happen.

About a month ago, she got a notice from the post office, she had a package to pick up.  She had even forgotten about it!  When she picked up her package, she couldn’t believe it!  After a year, he finally returned the now-signed album cover to her.

She was very confused at this point, but knew she had to give it to me anyway. Remember, I had NO clue any of this was happening.  She and the girls had gone together and bought me a “BEAUTIFUL” glass type globe with the neatest candle in the center and salt rocks on the bottom.  I loved it when I opened it.  I then noticed they all looked at one another as if something was up.  Elizabeth pulled out the next gift, wrapped and all.   “Here, this is just something to set the candle on.”  She said, tho I could tell she was very nervous.  I opened it up, I saw the envelope, I opened it, I saw the album, I pulled it out of the envelope, and turned it over to see…………………he had signed it, and written a very generic something on it…..

“Wow.”  I said, almost stunned because it was as if it was simply a rock star writing to a “fan.”  Soul Mate had NEVER treated me like this.  Elizabeth began to tell me the story of how she had sent it a year ago. The girls all knew the story too.  What none of us could figure out tho was what it meant?  I felt so bad, and I think Elizabeth felt worst.  “Apparently he’s forgotten who I am?” I said.  But no one really believed that either.  Elizabeth did admit that she didn’t really make it clear in her letter to him who I was.  She simply said “my friend, Kym, is turning 50 and she thinks so much of you,  would you please write a note to her for her 50^th birthday and send it back?” In the letter she also mentioned that he and I had met a few times.  She did use my real name, Kym, which is spelled differently than most Kims.  That might have really confused him, but on top of that Elizabeth goes by two different names too, and the one she signed the letter with isn’t the one he knows her as, PLUS, she doesn’t live in the same state I do.  So we all began to wonder if he even knew it was for me?  BUT, there is more mystery to this story!  Why did he wait almost a year to return it?  Had he not gotten it until then?  Elizabeth kept talking to me about “his” birthday before she gave me the gift.  Did I know what he did?  Did AOL hit on his birthday? Finally she said,  “Look at the postmark.”  When I did I saw that he had mailed it back to me on HIS birthday.  Everyone just looked at one another, all of us, trying to solve the mystery.  How bizarre is that?  Or is it just coincidence?

I have a lot of faith, I really do, and I know that Elizabeth was doing one of the nicest things for me that anyone could ever do…………………and it would only work for her to do it because she has met him and spent time with him as well.  (I always joke, she is our official “photographer” because she’s taken just about all the photos of he and I.)  I sat with my friends last night, not sure whether to be embarrassed because I have made a story out to be something it isn’t…………………or touched because Elizabeth had done something so special for me.   “I don’t understand it.”  I kept saying.  “I just don’t understand.”  They all had their own summarizations,  but conceded to the fact, it remains such a mystery.

Here’s the weird thing, in his signature he NEVER said anything about happy 50^th!  Wouldn’t you think he would?  Actually, what he wrote was about as ambiguous as everything else he does. Did he know it was me?  That’s the only thing I keep questioning.  Perhaps he suspected, but wasn’t sure, as he couldn’t make it fit either?  And of course I’ve never written anything about it in my journal because until last night, I had NO idea this was going on behind the scenes.  Did he get mad because he thought I went and told someone who he was?  Of course my immediate friends do know his identity. 

And how weird is it that he wouldn’t send it back for almost a year, and waited until “HIS” birthday to return it?  Coincidence or just more of some sort of synchronicity?

Elizabeth and I sat up and tried to figure it out.  My heart was so broken. This whole journey is SO hard!  I mean you meet a complete stranger, but all of your life you KNOW this is the one you have waited for, on some sort of level you always knew this person!  For me, God had given me visions of him before meeting, everything I know of God’s leadings and directions led me to that fateful day he walked into my work place.  I could go on and on how it has gone beyond believable fate for us to meet time and again, and things that have happened, and through it all the toughest thing has been for me, his profession!  Always worried that I had become some sort of groupie or something I made sure I stayed away from shows when he was in the area. I have trusted fate to work it out as is supposed to happen, I even have been very accepting in my heart of his new marriage, and where his life is, but the one thing that could hurt me the most, and has, is to be treated like a fan.  Just another number of how many………….

With that being said, I do have some very special things he has sent me through the years.  A letter he once sent, a sign photo of he and I with his own little drawing of love on it…………….and when I think of it, that makes me believe he probably DIDN’T know it was me. 

But boy, my heart has been in shatters the past 24 hours!  And once again………………if he and I even TRY to communicate, “SOMETHING” always seems to stop it!!! I could go on with stories and stories of the times we have both tried to get beyond where it was, only to have things happen to make sure it didn’t get very far.  Like fate intervenes when the time is right, and then intervenes when the time is not right. 

I have been battling the faith all day.  Have I been a fool to believe for so long that he was always reading here? It’s not like I just saw someone hitting my site one day and said, “Oh, that has to be him!”  Believe me, there is a LOT of evidence, that if I listed it all, you can’t help but believe, 99.5% it HAS to be him!  But what if it isn’t?  What if that .05% is right?  Then “SOMEONE” has been here with me for near 4 years!  Seldom missing a day…………and normally letting me know they were here more than once a day.  Please, AOL……………….let me know I’m really not just a fan!!! Surely this is yet one more lesson for us BOTH to learn!

Earlier tonight as I was cooking my heart away for the kids to come tomorrow, my mind wandering when the madness of it all got to me, I turned on my praise music, I turned to God, I cried for a few moments, as it seems life has me SO stuck where I am! And the mystery, and complaints of the lack of so many things in my life were flowing,  God made me take a look that I am probably more blessed than I realize.  As the tears fell down my cheeks, I told him I was sorry,  because it’s true, I have so very much that I do take for granted.  And I suddenly felt better and decided it was time to write.  And here I am.

As the faith, love, and light lead me on.

Goodnight,

Sunshine

Goodnight Soul Mate:  And the mystery continues!  A year!  And to mail it back on YOUR birthday…………………..did that mean something?  Am I missing some important parts here?  I discovered something in all of this!  My greatest fear with you is NOT that I won’t be with you or ever see you again, but my greatest fear is that you would see me as just another “fan.”  This is what I think my lesson is in all of this…………….how to deal with my greatest fear, when it comes to you.  Believe me, this has me thinking a lot about this story.  I honor you so much where you are in your life, and would NEVER, EVER interfere.  I only write here because I DO believe you read the words, and yet, few know who you are.  It’s simply a place to connect, in a harmless way for your wife, and for that matter Dell.  Perhaps I’ve been wrong to do it all these years, but you were always here, and that meant to me you needed the connection as much as I did.  I still won’t run………………I’ll be here.  I promised you I always would be, and as long as you come, I will come here too.   In case you suspected, but wasn’t sure, yeah, it was for me.  At least you got it back in time for the 51^st birthday!  J  Remember from the story after the first year how I went to the ocean in Charleston and stood there and cried out for it to all go away, only to be led back to you via a man from Texas that played the drums?  In a few short weeks I plan to be on that same beach.  I think I will stand there again and cry out some more. I just need some answers!  But in lack of, I still and will always have my faith.  I send you love and light…………….a fool I may be, but I do it with a whole lot of love from the heart and that is what we will be judged for in the end.  And yeah, if it is you, you are still that special someone, and if it isn’t you, but someone else…………………well, they need to let me know cause we need to talk!  J Goodnight, Love, Sunshine