My Soul Mate

According to Plato, humans began with four legs, four arms and one head with two faces. To punish us for our pride, Zeus took a lightening bolt and divided man in two, causing us to mourn and walk the Earth in misery, longing for the other half of our soul.  According to the legend, when we find our soul mate, we will know the moment our eyes meet.  We will have a total and complete understanding of each other and when we come together, we will know no greater love or joy.
I have always hoped that every person had a soul mate - but realized years ago, that when we marry for eternity, we MAKE that person our soul mate.  It can be no other way.
A soul mate gets romanticized in the movies, in books , on the radio and on the internet.  There are even articles and people who teach you how to find your soul mate and how to recognize them when you see them.  Sounds simple, right?  Just take a class, read a book, do the assignments and voila...he will appear.?
Do I believe in a soul mate?  In my younger and more romantic phase of life (age 14-22), yes, I think I believed in a soul mate...until my heart was broken....But when I fell in love with Del, I didn't actually FEEL he was my soul mate.  I never even thought of him that way.  I thought of him as a man I loved and loved me - that I was happy with and could make a family with.
It hasn't been until over the 32 years of marriage, that I have realized Del and I have BECOME soul mates.  We are NOW, the other half of each other - in the eternal sense of I cannot be exalted without him, and he cannot without me.  I am complete without Del..as a human - in that I have my own thoughts, my own dreams and my own goals -as does he.  Some of them overlap his - but some of them do not.  We are each individuals,with characteristics unique to ourselves.  We each bring something to the table - we each contribute to become more than just ourselves.
Our spirits are now one - .  I love that Del is my soul mate now.  I love that I have grown to unite my desires with his, my goals with his and that we have learned to take enough of what each of us has to offer, and joined those for our mutual benefit.  We haven't eliminate our individual selves, but brought the best of each of us, to the table.
I love him.  I really do love him.