Finding "the one," in more ways than one

Yesterday I had a conversation with my therapist about structural dissociation, and “parts work,” and integrating different aspects of one’s personality into a cohesive whole. As I understand it, these types of theories are controversial in the psychology world (but what theory isn’t, frankly?), perhaps because of their passing resemblance to debunked Freudian models of the split self. But that doesn’t mean they’re not useful, if just as a metaphor to help you understand your own brain.

As I was pondering this in the bath after my therapy session, I wondered if I would ever find a psychological model that neatly explained all my issues and experiences, like the twist at the end of a mystery novel: Ohhh. Of course. But the more that I do therapy and learn about how brains work, the less certain I am that any theory of the mind can universally make sense of human thoughts, fears, traumas, and experiences. Our psyches are just too tangled and constructed for there to exist some primordial backend explanation that covers all the bases and sheds all the light.

But my desire for an omni-sensical Answer To It All persists nonetheless. And it feels very much like my belief in a soulmate, a perfect match, The One.

This, too, is something I’ve had to dissect with therapists before. Every time I started dating someone (or, occasionally, just met someone and wished I was dating them) who struck me as deeply perfect for me, I started whipping up elaborate romantic fantasies about our idealized future together. Everything clicked into place: bleep bloop, engage soulmate mode! But then, inevitably, each of these people would eventually disappoint me, or betray me, or break up with me, or just start to bore me, and I was forced to re-draft my entire imagined future in my mind. Often this new future looked bleaker and wearier than what I’d craved before, which contributed to the crushing grief that accompanied these relational tribulations. It was as if I’d lost the key to a very important door and didn’t know how I’d ever open it. What was behind the door? Eternal happiness, I suppose, or the false promise of it.

I’ve long believed in the idea of a Perfect Person For Me in the same way as I’ve dreamed of the Perfect Therapy Modality For Me, as if either could singlehandedly cure my depression, clear my skin, make me suddenly famous and fix my whole life. Perfected, embodied, self-actualized. But these concepts are not as binaristic as I once imagined, and neither a good partner nor an effective therapist can fix your life if you’re not yet willing or able to do that work yourself.

My spouse Matt is easily the most soulmate-esque figure I’ve ever known, in the sense that we are the most compatible in the most ways, we love each other an equal amount (and that amount is a lot), and even the most difficult moments of our relationship have been somehow easier and sweeter than other relational conflicts I’ve experienced. We fit together even better than I ever hoped I’d fit with another person. But it’s not like I knew they were my destiny the moment I walked into the café where we had our first date. I was literally just trying to kill some time before getting on a train later that afternoon by having coffee with a cute stranger from Twitter. Even after the kissing and nuzzling and spanking that ensued toward the end of that date, I didn’t know I’d just met my future spouse, the way I’d always envisioned I would somehow “just know” when someone life-alteringly special stumbled into my path. It took at least a few months for me to realize this was a person I deeply wanted and needed to be with, and several more months after that for us both to figure out that marriage and life-partnership made sense as a trajectory for us.

I’m writing this mostly as a reminder to myself (but also to you) that there are no “quick fixes” for life’s big problems. You may experience epiphanies or pleasant surprises that knock you off your feet, but even the most hallelujah-like revelations can’t solve everything in one fell swoop. There is no magic key that somehow opens every door and answers every question. That’s true for your brain, your heart, and everything else.

That doesn’t mean you’ll never learn anything or get anywhere. It’ll just happen slower than you probably wish it would. Is this what people mean when they say life is “about the journey, not the destination”? If I reached the destination, would it just disappoint me? Should I take my foot off the gas pedal and turn on cruise control? Should I lean my head out the car window and drink in the sun-spackled highway stretching out ahead of me, like a flower in perpetual mid-bloom?