Author's Note: First off, I want to make something very clear - The style of writing in this story is not my usual style. It's choppy, and a little scatter brained. The reason for this is because it's an internal monolouge. A diary entry, if you want to call it that. It is from the thoughts of my character, Sara Adams (From my story "And Then, They Fell in Love"), as she looks back on her life many years later. For many readers, this will be a taste of the Sara that is in the new version of the story. I want people to be able to idenitfy with her, and realize exactly how much she changes through the course of the story, and even her own life. She's older, more experienced, and even a little bitter. I hope that maybe people can read this story and go "I've felt like that before." I know I certainly have.

There are those in the world that are blessed with the gift of soul mates. You find that one person, or two people that share a special bond so close with you that you truly can’t imagine life without them. Kindred spirits, some might call them. For most, they relate it to love, but that isn’t always the case.

I myself have three people who I could say were my soul mates. One was my first husband, the second a good friend and a lover, and the third the man I am married to now. Many might call me lucky - blessed even - for having that many people be so dear to me. I don’t see it as such, though. While I love the people who have come in to my life in this manner, I feel unlucky. I’ve lost two of them.

I met my first soul mate at the tender age of nineteen. Looking back on everything, I can see how naïve I really was about the world. He was my wake up call - with him, I had to deal with topics such as sexuality, mental disorders, and child abuse. The boy I had grown up around had changed in the six years since I had last seen him. He’d become colder, and wise well beyond his years. He was my first in many senses - my first real boyfriend, my first sexually, and my first husband. He also gave me my firstborn. If you had asked me at twenty, I could have told you I’d never imagine my life without him.

Fate is cruel though, and I truly believe that even fifteen years later, I still have never quite gotten over the hurt and shock that followed his sudden death. It left me stranded; alone. Alone to figure out how to pay bills in this small apartment we had rented, alone to raise our tiny, unborn daughter.

That’s when my second soul mate stepped in. A boy I had know my entire life came to my rescue. He took me in when I was living with my in-laws (who are the two most kind people you would ever meet), and struggling with all sorts of depression. He’d been there - this was a boy who had overcome a variety of problems - an alcoholic father, a drug addiction, bi-racial . . . He knew exactly what to do.

He picked me up when I had reached the rock bottom. I know I made some mistakes with him - I led him along, and probably went a little too far, in most senses of the word. We discussed marriage at one point - but with his illness and my slight hesitance at the idea, we both decided to put it off. I lived with him; loved him. It was enough for that point in time.

But eventually he decided he was tying me down - he had a job offer in the States that he couldn’t refuse. I offered to marry him; I love you, I thought. He didn’t disagree, but told me in a sad tone he could never marry me; he wouldn’t want to leave me a widow again. And though I disagreed at the time, I realize now that was the most selfless thing he could have ever done.

My third soul mate, my current husband, came in at just the right time. He was a man I had known all along - the cousin of my first husband. He was familiar with me, with my family, and the things that had happened in my life thus far. He came in as my second was leaving, and patiently waited while I sorted out my issues. He loved my daughter as though she were his own. He listened to me rant about the stupidity and selfishness of men, and how fate liked to play cruel jokes on me. I kept him waiting; I was bad luck, I told him. I killed men. If he were to end up with me, surely he would end up dead within an unseemly amount of time.

He has proved me wrong, however. Even with the passing of my second soul mate, my husband still remains. He’s held me while I cried, comforted my daughter over the death of her “father”. She is finally starting to accept him as her father figure, and we both couldn’t be happier.

Despite the events in my life, I really can not complain. While I am bitter about losing two of the most important people to me, I am glad they were there. I couldn’t imagine my life without their co-operation. If I hadn’t met my first husband, I wouldn’t have my daughter. With my second, I would have missed out on a life-long friend, and my third. . . Well, I probably wouldn’t be married.

Don’t take advantage of the people you consider your soul mates. For, while you might be theirs, they may not be the only one for you. It has taken me years to be able to speak of two of them without tearing up, and even now, they start to well in my eyes.

Soul mates come in different shapes and sizes. Sometimes, you just have to know where to look.