Soulmates transcend gender, age, race, and other distinctions. To me, a soulmate is someone through whom you see a part of yourself—your beliefs, values, or even the way you live.

I was very quiet when I first came here and didn’t really know how to interact with local people. I slowly got more comfortable, and the gap between Western and Eastern cultures shrank.

After years of obsessive digging and seeking, it turns out what I had been looking for was my SELF: My true, authentic, intuitive, creative, beautiful, worthy self that had been silenced.