FRENCHIE FRIDAY: #lifepartners

He has light hair and big brown eyes. He's super muscular and I just love his butt! We love going on adventures and have traveled the country together.

My family adores him and my friends know how important he is to me. He's strong but cuddly, outgoing but an excellent confidant.

He's the most precious thing on the entire planet and he makes me feel like the luckiest lady in the world.

This is what I planned say in case anyone asked me about my Valentine as I walked to the checkout line, champagne and white roses in hand.

Of course no one did, but I was just as prepared for this conversation as I am every other conversation I have in my head that's never actually going to happen. My imagination being what it is, I've lived several lifetimes through millions of unspoken conversations in my mind.

This proud paragraph written in invisible ink was inspired by a real-life, out loud conversation I had with a friend a few weeks back. When we were talking about Milo's rat poison scare, she empathized with how scary it was because Milo was my life partner right now.

Life partner.

Hm.

That's true, he is!

Yes, in fact, my 22-pound potato is my life partner and has been for a few years.

He's reliable, ever-present, and has walked alongside me in sickness and in health. I talk all the time about how we co-create a life together, so yeah - Milo is totally my life partner.

It was obvious when she said it, but before she put words to it, I'd never given myself permission to label his role with such royalty.

When someone says life partner usually they're referring to a person, and the problem with this vernacular (as with most language we use) is that it's very limiting. It triggers most people to feel alone, lonely, and incomplete if they're walking hand-in-hand without another human.

Through this more liberating lens of life partner, I've begun to see my life story with more clarity, better understanding what it means to be partnered in life.

First, the narrowness of the conventional narrative came to light. Using life partners to describe long marriages and lifelong lovers doesn't do justice to the beauty that happens when we live alongside another soul - if only for a moment, a month, or at most a few years.

All of my lovers and romantic relationships have been significant and soul-level. My boyfriends have been best friends who taught me lessons no one else could. My lovers have taught me lessons I couldn't learn on my own. And I know what it feels like to be held by another human through horrid times.

I have been in love many times, and each of these people were - in fact - life partners. Their many bodies gifted me with diverse lessons I perhaps could not have learned had I stayed with only one. They partnered with my life for a time, and these partnerships were meaningful because they were momentary - not despite it.

Second, calling Milo my life partner transformed how I see my relationship with previous pets. I'd always ALWAYS seen pets as significant (like a witch's familiar), but never gave them the due credit they deserved for co-creating my life with me.

Jobin and Napoleon were gerbil brothers my mom bought me when I was super depressed and living in Chicago.

Bailey was my orange, fluffy feline who grew up with me through some very difficult developmental years.

Freddie, my fluffy guinea pig, was ever-present but sadly neglected in the overwhelming phase of my preteen years. I still feel terrible I couldn't give him a better life.

Tammy was our black cat who was incarnated right around the time I was, and she lived to be almost 20 years old.

Princess was our very first family dog, a German Shepard mix whose quiet, comforting energy I can still feel now.

And there were many more who supported my life force, even if they weren't technically "my own." Buddy, my brother's Beagle who lived with my parents at the same time I did. Nico, our second family dog growing up who could spot people with bad energy from a mile away. And many more dogs, ducks, cats, and kittens than I can count.

But beyond pets, I believe objects are additionally destined to support the co-creation of life, so I also have several life partners who showed up as cars.

My 1991 Chevy Corsica my cousin called the Silver Bullet. The Dodge Intrepid that suffered four deflated tires during our tenure. The 1999 Oldsmobile Cutlass that got its ass kicked in Chicago but still never let me down. The Hyundai Santa Fe that turned out to be a lemon, but led me to my baby black Equinox who sheltered Milo and me cross-country.

And plants!

Oliver, my Song of India tree I rescued from a dumpster despite my boyfriend telling me not to (I did it the second he left). Baby Groot, my teeny tiny orange tree that I've had for seven years, birthed from the seed of a yoga teacher's tree.

And a little knick knack in the form of a frog kissed with red lipstick that says "Before you meet your handsome prince, you have to kiss a lot of horny toads." The date on the back is from the 1970s, but it came into my life when I was seven or eight, a treasure revealed to me at a rummage sale.

My bed, my standing desk, and my couch all feel like life partners too - energy incarnate sent to comfort, support, and encourage my evolution.

And every space I've lived in - for however long - I've treated as sacred, grateful to be hosted by houses and apartments all across the country.

To say the least, my perception of life partners has changed. So when Valentine's Day rolled around, I'm glad I celebrated a day of romance with my partners. To be honest, I almost forgot!

For whatever reason, I'd decided to insulate myself from the day - stay away from stores, avoid my phone, and keep my exposure to the consumerism to a minimum.

I went on a run and felt called to go shopping afterward, an impulse I found very confusing because I didn't really need anything at the time. But I went anyway because I listen to my internal GPS, and when I saw the dozen white roses, I remembered why I celebrate every year - whether or not I have another human to hold.

First, I love romance! By definition, romance is anything that feels fantastic and outside the demands of daily life. Romance is one of the pillars upon which I build my life - I love the luxury of a hot bath, hotel-like sheets, and a ridiculously cozy couch. I adore how quickly a space feels celebratory with flowers and champagne.

I also celebrate every year because even if Milo weren't around (which would be WAY less fun for the photo shoots!), I am still my life partner.

The spirit, ethereal part of me gets to wake up every day and partner with this physical, earthly part of me, and together we are building a beautiful, brilliant life one collaborative choice at a time.

If that doesn't deserve champagne and roses, I don't know what does!

I didn't always feel this way. For most of my life, I've felt resentful that my ethereal, angelic self needed to be crammed into this cage of a body, forced to live a life confined to the limiting laws of the third dimension.

But as I've continued my practice in interdimensional lifestyle design, my body has become more ethereal, and my soul has become more earthly. They've created an integrative partnership that's causing quite a gravitational stir. Especially lately, I'm falling more in love with this life partnership and feel grateful to get up and greet each day.

I hope this message finds you at just the right time to remind you that life partners are all around - they're not just the person who sleeps next to you at night. They are plants, animals, objects, friends, and family.

The sad truth about them all is that they will leave you or you will leave them at some point in this lifetime. This is just the way mortality works, and it's this limitation of time and space that makes every moment meaningful.

But there is one true life partner who will never leave your side, and this is the soul who entered your body at the hour of your incarnation and will remain in your cells until the hour of your death.

My hope is that the two of you celebrate every day.