she saved me

by emily burke

If we had never met I may have never left. In many ways I loved my life. I was married to my best friend, and sometimes that truly felt like enough. But there was all too often this little voice in my head calling me a liar. That I wasnt being fair to myself or to Scott. That eventually, one day, I would need more. I would often look in the mirror and stare at myself thinking, “who. the hell. are you.” I knew who I was when I was with her.

Finding Candace was like discovering a piece of myself that I never knew was missing. She was charismatic, magnetic, beautiful, fun and a calming, balancing force to my anxious, energetic self.

By the second or third day of the trip I knew something unexplainable was happening between us… something almost other worldly. The first moment that sticks out for me was when that silly Liz Phair song “Why Cant I” came on. This weird sensation washed over me. My friend Dana explained it as “pre nostalgia.” It was a feeling similar to de ja vu… almost like I was experiencing a future feeling between us that didn’t quite make sense yet since we didn’t know each other. I looked at her, we made eye contact and both felt this magnetic spark between us ignite, as if our souls were recognizing each other. After that, things escalated really quickly. I wanted to tell her my whole life story, I couldn’t stop thinking about her and whenever she wasn’t near me I missed her and wondered where she was. We became inseparable and one night ended up talking until 5 in the morning, about our life stories, spirituality, and our connection. There was this insane unconditional love growing between us and our connection was something I had never experienced before. We couldn’t figure it out. We kept saying we felt like we had known each other in a million past lives. I felt comfortable talking to her about all of the doubts and fears that I had never admitted to anyone and had hardly even admitted to myself. That I was confused, that something in my relationship was missing. The floodgates had been opened and while our relationship made me feel alive, loved, excited, connected… I also felt absolutely terrified and stricken with anxiety. The next 2 months would turn out to be the darkest period of my life… trying to save my marriage but knowing I had found my soulmate.

candace