Operation Soulmate (21 page)

     A long silence followed in which Geraldine sniffed occasionally, and wrestled with her conscience. Patrick wrestled with his feelings towards Jaybird, Geraldine wrestled with her feelings towards Andrew, and a multitude of other guilts, pains and sorrows amalgamated and hurled themselves around inside her mind. Eventually, she began to feel at peace, as Patrick’s tortured soul finally left its haunting ground and went hurtling towards the light. Cassia sensed the change in Geraldine’s energy and saw her face slowly becoming much more peaceful and relaxed. Geraldine nodded minutely.

     “Thank you Patrick. Geraldine... in a minute, I’m going to ask you to come back into the room as you are... as Geraldine... in your present incarnation. When you come back to full consciousness, your unconscious mind will have processed everything you have remembered in
new
ways, ways which are positive and affirming to you in
this
lifetime, this wonderful lifetime in which you are
this
truly successful, contented, openhearted and remorseless individual. Or, perhaps you are a newer version of Geraldine, one who can effortlessly integrate all of these learnings from the past, and go on to create beautiful, fulfilling relationships.

      In a minute, I’m going to count from one to five, and when I get to five, you will awaken and come back into the room feeling relaxed, fully alert, rejuvenated and ready to continue your day.”

     When Geraldine opened her eyes, Cassia was watching her closely and smiling sympathetically. Geraldine shuddered slightly as her consciousness fully re-entered the room.

     “Geraldine,” said Cassia, quietly, “I’m open to discussing your regression with you, but what you just experienced felt very powerful. You did some very deep work, today, and my sense is that you might want to process this quietly, alone.”

     Geraldine nodded, feeling slightly shell-shocked by the depth and intensity of what had just taken place. “I’d really encourage you to just sit with those feelings a while. Don’t try to analyse them. Just stay in your heart; be gentle with yourself for the rest of the day... Do things that make you feel
really
good, really loved and happy. Pamper yourself. I’ll see you next week. In the mean time, please feel free to call me if you have any questions or concerns.”

      Geraldine wanted to hug Cassia. Did she have any idea just
how
powerful the session had been, or just how much it had really meant to her? Cassia looked as if she simply took everything in her stride, Buddha-like, serene and without ego attachment to any particular outcome. Geraldine shook her head in disbelief and wandered towards the door, pensively.

     Cassia held the door open for her and stood looking at her for a moment, her penetrating gaze searching her face for signs that she was truly ready to face the outside world again.   

    “That was excellent work, Geraldine. You should be really pleased with yourself...” Geraldine thanked her and drifted towards the reception desk to book her next appointment.

On the way home from her first session, Geraldine felt exhausted and elated, but, most of all, she felt strangely compassionate towards Andrew and even more appreciative of her friendship with Ben. She could easily imagine that somewhere neatly tucked into every story from her past, he had been there as a dear and trusted friend. In fact, it made perfect sense that Ben had probably
always
been her best friend... It just felt right!

     When she arrived home, she ignored the temptation to look at her calendar and count the days to her birthday. The process she had begun that day suddenly made everything else pale into insignificance. What did it all mean, anyway, when she’d probably turned thirty a thousand times, in several eras in which, what to do about the
prospect
of turning thirty, had probably been as insignificant as choosing whether to use a bow and arrow, a rifle, or a bomb to end it all for someone else in a heartbeat. Now that she thought about it, she doubted that Patrick had even been lucky enough to have
reached
thirty, and she began to see the approaching birthday for the blessing it truly was.

     She decided to put her birthday out of her mind completely. The pursuit of truth was, surely, far more important than any of the numbers on any calendar. Time was meaningless, she could see that now. The quality of her life couldn’t be determined by some spurious arbiter of time when there was all of eternity to consider. Life wasn’t about time. Time didn’t come into it. Life, however short or long, was really just a series of choices about whether to let the past dominate you forever or to just tell the past to go screw itself, and end the prolonged, self-inflicted suffering - which often undermines the otherwise, noble, joyful and fearless - by letting yourself off the hook, or, in this case, the noose!

      She thought back to her first meeting with Andrew. It had seemed so
fated
somehow. They’d been inexplicably, and almost magnetically drawn together from the very first moment they’d met. She had, of course, assumed it must be because he was her twin flame, and she’d known for certain that they’d, at the very least, been together before in a previous incarnation. Geraldine laughed hollowly as she remembered that feeling of instant connection. She had correctly surmised that they had been drawn together by an old and possibly previously frustrated passion. But it had never occurred to her that they might also have been bound together by an ‘ancient grudge’ and an unquenchable rage on Andrew’s part. And then there was Ben, lovely, lovely,
lovely
Ben. The most beautiful soul she’d ever had the good fortune to meet, destined to be her loyal and trusted friend, across the time/space continuum. There was no doubt that he would make someone a wonderful husband some day. And there was also no doubt in her mind that he should be free to pursue his own happiness. Even if the closest she got to having a boyfriend at her birthday party was settling for a pizza and DVD night, with her closest friends, and maybe inviting Carl along.

     As she lay soaking in the tub, she heard the lock turning in the door and the familiar clatter of Ben’s keys being thrown playfully onto the kitchen table. Everything about him was just so playful and gorgeous. She listened carefully for the sound of him closing the door to the office. When she emerged from the bath, she could hear him speaking to someone on the phone. He was speaking in hushed tones and laughing intermittently. He seemed to be doing a lot of that just lately, lovely Ben. She waited until he’d finished speaking and then sheepishly put her head around the door. She felt strangely shy in front of him suddenly. It was one thing knowing that he knew absolutely everything there was to know about her relationship history in
this
lifetime, but suddenly, the notion that he might know, albeit unconsciously, everything about her across all directions of time and space was slightly overwhelming, to say the least.

      “Hey,” she said, “How’s it going?”

      “Hey honey, it’s good thanks” Ben proceeded to tell her all about his latest triumph with Miss X and shared with her, some of the highlights from his latest radio interview, as she stood watching him with new eyes. She almost wanted to cry, again, just thinking about what a wonderful friend he was, what a wonderful friend he’d obviously always been. She walked up to him hugged him mid-sentence, gripping him so tightly he could feel her small wrist bones digging into his ribs slightly. He pulled away and looked at her.

      “Hey, what’s all this?” he said, searching her face for clues.

      “Oh, Ben,” she said, smiling beatifically into his perplexed face. “You are
such
a beautiful, beautiful friend to me.”

       Ben smiled and shook his head. Geraldine was so surprising, even after all this time. Okay, at this particular moment she was bordering on the slightly overemotional, but she never ceased to amaze him. There was always so much going on with her, and most of it went on beneath the surface. So far beneath the surface, in fact, that it was usually deeply mysterious, even to him. She was a mental smorgasbord of fascinating emotional and esoteric possibilities, but the weirdest thing of all was that when you scratched the surface and got into some of those wildly imaginative possibilities, they all seemed to hang together with an alarming consistency and make a peculiar kind of uncommon sense.

     “You are to me too, Hon,” he said, rubbing her arm gently. “But I’ve really got to get ahead with this
SMART MAGAZINE
deadline. You understand, don’t you?” Geraldine smiled agreeably and tiptoed out to the living room, leaving a slightly bewildered Ben to continue with his work. When would be a good time to tell him all about her new discoveries? He just seemed so busy these days.

      Geraldine was restless. She wanted to share her new-found wisdom with
someone
. She decided to call Andrew and put the whole, sorry mess behind them once and for all. After all, if she was intending that she should operate at the highest level of truth and love in order to attract someone who was able to
match
that frequency, she would have to start right here, right now, by making peace with the past, on all levels.

     She was amazed and slightly irritated to find that she still had Andrew’s number memorised, after all this time. She pressed the buttons, carefully, and with a slightly wobbly finger. Andrew picked up the phone after just two rings. “Hello,” He said optimistically. Geraldine was thrown by the effect of hearing his hail-fellow-well-met-ish greeting, and for a minute she was caught up, again, in all the old hurt. How
dare
he sound so cheerful after everything he’d put her through? But she knew that this was exactly the kind of thinking that
had
to stop if they were ever to end the cycle of reproach, resentment and revenge. So
what
if he was happy. Why
shouldn’t
he be? In fact, if he
had
truly found happiness, it was a
good
thing! It would probably mean that perhaps he’d
also
found some peace, some insights and maybe some healing. It would mean that Jaybird had finally let go of her pain and anger and allowed a fresh, new paradigm to come into Andrew’s consciousness, and change his beliefs about love and life forever. And surely, in the end, that would be better for everyone. Better for him, better for her, better for whoever Pa had been in that life, better for Josh, maybe even better for Andrew’s entire family in this life, now...and her family and Ben’s and Pa’s. Maybe even the entire family of the Native American soul and the soul of America. In fact, she was beginning to quite conceivably see how Andrew’s letting go of all that old, embittered hurt
could
have a massive, ripple effect on the entire consciousness of humanity, so deep was it’s reach into his soul.

    “Hi, Andrew, It’s Geraldine.”

    “Gerry! Hi Baby,” said Andrew, his tone softening slightly. He could hardly believe his ears. After all these years, she
still
wanted him. He’d always felt that they were destined to be together, and had known deep down, that if he just waited long enough, she’d eventually come running back. She always did in the end. Andrew had lost count of the times Geraldine had
tried
to ‘move on’ and begin her life again, without him, only to pick up the phone and get in touch just a few months later, when that life had so obviously proved disappointing without their deep and intense connection. How could she deny that connection? Well, it was patently obvious now that she couldn’t.

    He’d always known they were each other’s destiny somehow, for better or worse. Sure, when he’d heard nothing from her, for such a long time, he’d almost been driven to desperation, but there was no way he was ever going to call
her
, oh no! It was up to
her
to call
him
.
She
was the one who’d done wrong.
She
was the one who needed to make amends, and she so obviously knew it. That was precisely why she
did
always call in the end and come running back. And precisely why he knew she would always, eventually, come around to his way of thinking...whatever the quarrel had been and however long it took for her to come to her senses. He hadn’t expected it to take
years,
this time. However, now that she
had
finally called and was prepared to make good...he would let her.

      Geraldine, was fighting every impulse in her body to slam the phone down. What was she thinking!? Andrew was stuck! Stuck in time, stuck in a pattern, stuck, stuck, stuck!! That’s all there was to it! She could feel it psychically and hear it in his tone. He'd even had the audacity to call her ‘Baby’. Ugh!! It was weird.
He
was just weird!!! It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d called him a week after their last break-up or ten
years
from now. He’d still be there waiting for her to come shuffling back to him... waiting there with that same smug, self-satisfied, expectant energy about him, and calling her ‘Baby’.

       She was about to end the call when she suddenly remembered that it’s purpose was to finally draw a line under all the animosity and to let him go...with love. She took a deep breath and, for some reason, suddenly remembered the old Ghandi quote: something about an eye for an eye making the whole world blind. She took a deep breath and decided to just speak from the heart and see what happened. She was bigger than all that now. Someone had to be bigger, and surely
she
had to be that someone. Just because she knew how to be.

     “Andrew,” She said, “I’m calling you because I wanted to make peace with you.” Andrew smiled to himself. “Oh, Gerry, honey, that’s so sweet. I’ve missed you too, so much, Baby...”

      “No Andrew, she said, “That’s
not
what I meant. I want to make peace with you, at higher level...at a soul level. I want you to know that I will always,
always
love you, as a being who shares this beautiful Earth and all of its puzzling mystery and charm with me, but I’m now ready, really and
truly
ready, to let go of all the stings of our past together, and to release us both from this terrible, karmic burden, across all directions of time and space. I love you and I’m sorry. I wish you peace. I wish you love. Thank you for the great lessons you’ve taught me. Thank you for loving me. Goodbye Andrew.” Geraldine didn’t hang up the phone at this point, but simply waited instead to see if there was any response to come from him. He deserved that. She thought she heard him sniff, and then a long silence followed. Then more sniffs.

      “Gerry....” he said, suddenly, completely inarticulate for the first time ever since she’d known him. “
Gerry
...” She felt waves of newly-released energy freeing itself and rushing around her body in flaming flashes of quantum heat as they both paused at this incredible juncture in the cosmic map, defying destiny, challenging fate, saying no to ‘the way it must be for all time,’ creating a curve, causing a ripple, making waves, saying yes to their creative, God-given birth-right to find a new way to live, love and leave in peace.

      She waited patiently, allowing the silence to flow between then, so it might be done and done well, once and for all time... until finally, Andrew seemed to collect himself. “Good luck, Gerry,” He said quietly. He’d been momentarily tempted to add,
‘good luck finding anyone else who’ll put up with you and your crazy-assed bullshit,’
but something stopped him. “I really mean it,” he heard himself saying, from some, mysterious,
other
part of his consciousness.

    “Thank you, Andrew. You too,” she said, with tears treacherously welling up, yet again. “We’re complete now, you and me...”

    Andrew said nothing. He was wrestling with something, some invisible aspect of himself. His lips wouldn’t stop trembling, his steely blue grey eyes darted around the room, searching wildly for something that made sense. But there was nothing. Nothing but a few irrational images of tomahawks, and loud Gatling guns ringing through the longest night, accompanied by the cries of mothers and their children, the fruitless slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and a peculiar sense that he just wanted to sit and cry for a very long time, without knowing exactly why. “Goodbye Gerry.” He said, quietly. “I did love you...”