The Time I Dreamed About My Soul Mate and then Met Him

Once I dreamed I met my soulmate. I remember how it felt. I don’t remember what he looks like, though. What I do remember is, both of us being on a ship, and it’s raining. It looks like a military or industrial ship. We’re standing on an outside, water-level-ish deck with waves splashing, looking at each other in a way that feels like… concern, astoundedness, shock? Not more troublesome than that, though. Not longing/sadness/grief, anything like that. But… having realized something, and there being “implications” of realizing it.

He seemed my age (first half of 30s), beefier build than me but not a whole lot taller, with dark hair and wet curls falling across his face. That’s what I remember.

AI rendering of “a dark curly-haired man that’s facing me and looking me in the eye, in the nighttime, on the sea-level deck of a navy battle ship, while it’s raining, but I can’t see his face because his curls cover it”. Not terrible. Not great.

I’d almost forgotten about this dream until last week. The rodeo was in town and my boyfriend and I attended it. I’m not particularly country but my mom and her whole family are, so I automatically like the culture by proxy until people give me a reason not to (they haven’t) and I was having a grand old time.

There was a booth selling, I guess, farmers market-type things? Homemade jams, jellies, soaps, pickled things, hats/mittens, but also had a section of single horseshoes from what I assume are their horses. I started chit-chatting with a woman that I gathered was the mother figure of the family or business, telling her about how when I was 8, a horse that I was on took off full-speed toward the stable because my brother fell off his pony and my mom let go of my horse’s lead to attend to him and how I hadn’t ridden a horse since…

I blah blah’d maybe a scooch too long. She was supremely sweet and a great listener, but was obviously getting anxious because she had things to do. Just then a younger man joined our group and said hello and asked how I was. I said I was doing great! But inside, my whole body was charmed and all my energy had drained from it.

I swear I had seen this dude before.

Couldn’t pinpoint from where, though. He was… I don’t know, nice looking. Normal? Normal for a rodeo? Nice flannel, nice hat, generally looked very, I don’t know, nice! Nothing abnormal. Nothing flabbergasting amazing, either. So why did I have a physiological response? I got my bearings and the breathlessness didn’t last for long (phew).

We blah blah’d. I relayed the same horse story to him because I wanted to keep talking but didn’t have anything to talk about.

I said, “So that’s the end of my story. The horseshoes caught my eye. The gentleman who owned China gave me one of her horseshoes for surviving the ordeal. Those ones look special. I hope the horses they came from are good babies!”

No response. Two seconds. Three seconds. He’s just looking at me. Now he’s smiling. Now *I’m* smiling! Phew. Very glad D (my boyfriend) is somewhere else. This is a seriously special, secret little moment I’m having. I wish he would say more things.

I breathed out a big sigh and was myself again. I said, “Well this is a nice little moment.” and smiled with my eyes.

I asked him what his name was. It’s Adam. I told him mine was Lauren and shook his hand. He asked, “do you live here?” I told him yes. And what about him? Oh, he lives in the mountains! Amazing. I asked if this was a family business, and it “kind of” is. He used to be in the Navy, and met this woman soon after he’d gotten out and bought a house in their mountain town. They stayed friends, and now he works for her.

The Navy! Wowzers. Much respect to anyone who went through military service. I could never do it. I am a huge wimp. I told him all this. And he said, “I think you would surprise yourself. I know what kind of person you are.”

Do you? Shoot, I’d like to know what kind of person I am… spill the beans, mister. (I didn’t say this)

And then things got REAL deep. He said to me, “You’re extremely interesting to me.” and then he took off his cowboy hat and let a million little curlies fall into his face, before scooping them all backward with his hand and plopping his hat back on his head.

“Well that could mean anything.” I turned on the flirt. Sorry, D, it happened. “Intrigued-interesting? Creepy-interesting? This lady doesn’t belong at a rodeo-interesting??” Yes I said it with two question marks.

He laughed. The charmingest laugh. He said, “Well, I can’t be sure. I want to make sure I pick the right words and I don’t know if I can, so give me a moment.” He fidgeted and took the time to pick the right words. I appreciated this and slow-nodded to him to acknowledge his thoughtfulness.

“When you were walking over here, I swear I had seen that exact scene before. You in this same long black coat and this, what do you call it, a romper? And I think the space leggings too? And you danced your way in and out of people on your way to walking toward me just like you did when you came up to this booth. Why is that?”

I turned off the flirt and got solemn with him. “I wasn’t going to say anything for fear of coming off as weird or disrespectful, but I feel FOR CERTAIN that you and I have met before. I don’t remember anything more than that.”

He agreed. But then he went there: “Would you mind if I took you out to dinner sometime?” My amygdala IMMEDIATELY pumped the brakes. But damn it, I was smiling like an idiot and had to explain myself.

I got strong, looked him in the eye and said, “Well first of all, dang, thanks very much for asking! What a wonderful thing to hear. Second, I have a counteroffer. It might suck a little more for you, but it’ll tell me a lot. You ready?”

“Lay it on me.”

“Well, THIS, whatever THIS is, (I point from my forehead to his, to mine, to his, to mine… you know the motion I’m making), it’s kind of unnerving.”

I pleaded sincerely: “I WANT to talk about it… but I want my husband to vet you.” (I know I upgraded D from boyfriend to husband but I needed some credibility here)

As I said this, I dropped my gaze like a Spice Girl and gave him a fake stink eye. A contained smile cracked on his face. It said to me, “Okay…go on...”

“Will you come over for football on Sunday and let us cook for you and we all hang out?”

And he roared his head back and laughed! “That sounds fuckin’ great, I’d love to!”

!!!!

The boy crazy part of me squee’d with delight! The big girl part of me appreciated his total understanding and respect. Lord, what a keeper. I had absolutely nothing to say after that, so I excused myself to keep wandering around the rodeo.

He gave me a card for their business, to eliminate the pressure of a not-single woman giving a strange man her personal information. He told me, talk to your dude, make sure it’s all good, and call the number on the business card. It’s Mary’s, and she’ll give you my number. I’ll give her the heads up you might come asking, nothing weird, and we can coordinate from there.

Hell yeah, Adam. Cheers.

Two nights later after I fell asleep, I went back to the boat dream. I’m facing a man, wet curls plastered to his face, standing on the deck of a military or industrial ship, it’s night time, rain is pounding at us… And you know what? I realize that I know his name: It’s Adam. I say the name out loud. We’re looking at each other for two seconds, three seconds, four seconds. Our facial expressions mirror each other. We’re bewildered, and then astonished, and then at the same time, our faces crack into a smile.

We’re astounded because we’d just met.

And we’re smiling because we’ve just met.