Free Soulmates by Jessica Grose

her tea. “When you’re fulfilled, it’s impossible to get bored, at least in the worldly sense. You are at peace with a blank mind.” She always made intense, direct eye contact. She seemed sort of crazy. But also really, really hot. Looking back, I realize that things weren’t great with Dana at that point. She was in her second year as an associate and she was working ninety hours a week. She was always afraid she’d burn out before she made partner, and that all her work would be for nothing. It’s what drove her.
    But I felt like she was always too busy to care about what was going on with me. I couldn’t remember the last time she asked me how I felt about anything. And here was Amaya, sharing her spirituality with me, a virtual stranger.
    â€œAnd what about you?” Amaya asked. “Are you a seeker?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, a seeker?” It’s funny to recall how ignorant I was about Amaya’s enlightenment at the beginning.
    â€œAre you interested in learning more about yourself and the world around you?”
    â€œOf course,” I said. “Who isn’t?”
    â€œYou’d be surprised,” Amaya said. “Most Americans are immune to the deep soul work that needs to be done to understand the world around us.”
    â€œWell, I’ve always been a really spiritual person,” I said, unsure if it was remotely true but wanting to impress her.
    â€œMy guru, Lama Yoni, would love that about you. He has a whole philosophy about how good things happen to people when they follow the laws of karma,” Amaya said. Then she closed her eyes and clasped her hands more tightly around her mug. She looked like she was about to say something else, but instead she got up slowly, nodded at me, and left the room.
    On my way home from the office that night I couldn’t stop thinking about Amaya. When I saw Dana sleeping peacefully in our bed, her lips slightly parted like a cartoon Sleeping Beauty, I felt guilty, but only a little. I was starting to feel the burgeoning of a spiritual awakening, and I owed it to myself to listen to those feelings and see where they led me.
    DAILY AFFIRMATION : Let the spirit fill up the empty spaces left by missing other halves.
    I took Dana out for Valentine’s Day to our favorite restaurant. It really felt like old times again, and I know she was happy then. She got off work early, like she said she would, and I took the night off from Green Wave. That alone felt like an accomplishmentfor us. But I was already starting to feel like I was holding a crucial part of myself away from her.
    Part of what helped that night was drinking. She hadn’t noticed that I didn’t have a sip of alcohol on New Year’s, or that I had not been joining her in her boozy brunching. Because I wanted us to have a harmonious night, I split a bottle of wine with her at the restaurant, and since it’s an Italian restaurant, I even gave up my clean eating for an evening to indulge in this Nutella calzone we always get for dessert.
    Dana looked really beautiful sitting across from me in the tight red dress she wore every Valentine’s Day. She’s a sucker for tradition and doing things for old times’ sake—hence the return to this particular restaurant and the dessert. She took solace in these rituals, and I was trying to apply my newfound discoveries from Yoni to our marriage. Lama Yoni would definitely approve of the idea of ritual giving people comfort.
    I hadn’t mentioned anything to Dana about the Urban Ashram at that point. I had been trying to think of a way to introduce her to everything I was learning, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it without her saying something nasty. Dana has always been caustic, as long as I’ve known her. I remember when we first met, in our nineteenth-century lit class. Dana said she didn’t like the main character in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park