The Magical Potential Of True Love

After four more years of tears and anguish, we finally parted for good. I packed two suitcases, my three-pound Yorkshire terrier, and moved to Chicago where I had some wonderful friends waiting to uplift and support me.
At first I cried at the sound of a motorcycle, or when I would see his favorite yogurt at the super market, but within a couple of months, I had pretty much exorcised him and felt wonderful. My energy lifted, my self-esteem was slowly climbing, and amazing things started happening for me.  I signed with a commercial agent and I booked two commercials in one week. As much as I’d like to blame Bruno for everything, to be fair, I always had the choice to leave, so my unhappiness was of my own making. I needed to find the meaning of true self-love to pave the way for lasting love with a soul-mate.
Yet, I think there was another angle to my sojourn with Bruno. Maybe in life’s journey we need the very people that we love to force us to grow. I thought I was fine, but Bruno uncovered my weak spot and used it for target practice. Even though I thought my self-image was good, it wasn’t all it needed to be, so I attracted someone that showed me exactly what I needed to work on. I couldn’t really see myself, and so I couldn’t really see Bruno. Other people are mirrors, and our own reflection in their eyes isn’t always rosy, but it may be useful.

I delved into self-help books, and began a strong spiritual practice of reflection and meditation. For a while, I still picked the wrong guys along the way, but my interest fizzled quickly. Then some magic began to happen for me and hasn’t stopped since.

One particularly warm spring evening in 2001, after my father passed away I walked to a pharmacy up on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to get some vitamins. There I met a delightful petite Polish woman from New York who also lived in the neighborhood and managed an apartment building. Sabrina and I became solid friends. We went to plays and comedy clubs together—it was a lot of fun. Sabrina was always talking about a guy who lived in her building. Adolfo. She told me he was dating a gal, but it wasn’t serious.
I didn’t really care to hear about a guy who was “in a relationship,” but every time I saw Sabrina, she kept talking about this guy. She told me that he played piano at a place in Playa Del Rey. I can’t explain this, but I felt like my dad was nudging me. I was just kind of glowing with expectation of the night I decided to go to the piano bar with Sabrina to secretly check him out.

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I liked his music, the way he played the piano, and just…the way he looked, Latin, handsome, a warm smile. He came over and sat with us on his break. After he finished, we all went over to Sabrina’s apartment and drank some cognac. We sat next to each other on her couch. When Sabrina left the room to get something, our fingers touched and then….our lips, I don’t know…they just…somehow…locked like magnets.
This man saw me with the eyes of love. My beauty took his breath away. (Such is love.) He wrote a song for me that was later used on TV. I finally found my true love, my soul mate. We were married in Mexico City in a charming five-hundred-year-old church. My simple yet elegant gown blushed slightly in a Pink so pale it was almost white, and silk roses clustered just at my lower back. It rained at the end of our reception, which I was told meant good luck—which has proven true.
A few years after we were married, Adolfo walked up to me in the living room and said, “I have a message for you. God told me to tell you to write. Forget about the acting. You need to write.”
“But I don’t want to forget about the acting,” I replied, totally confused.
“Well, I got the message, so you’d better follow up on it,” he said as he turned and walked back into his studio.
My head was spinning. Adolfo had no idea about my lifelong dream of becoming a published author. It was something that had beckoned to me my whole life, and I’d dabbled, but I never felt confident or talented enough to pursue writing seriously. I had been working as a matchmaker for a few years and had a lot of advice and entertaining tales to tell. The thought of writing a dating book had crossed my mind. I will go for it! I decided right then and there. Thank you, mi amor.

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When you see each other through the eyes of true love, you see who you both really are, and you nurture the dreams each one holds.  So, as lovers, we must not only love what we see, we must also truly see the one we love.