A place at the table

I have a theory. I think it is possible that souls are born into the physical forms they are meant to inhabit, i.e., babies.

Normally, my theory goes, the right soul is attached to the right baby, and that life is meant to be. It might not be the best life, due to choices made by and around the person as he or she goes about the business of growing up, living and dying.

I think that, if the unplanned baby is welcomed and loved, the soul is in its proper place. There is, in fact, no accident -- the soul is meant for that baby and the baby is meant to be, even if the parents don't realize it at first. "We're pregnant? Well, we didn't expect or plan for this, but wow, we're having a baby!"

However, I wonder about babies who are "accidents," who were never planned for and are not only an unpleasant surprise, but unwanted and even resented or hated. These are the ones for whom no place is set at the table. These people were never meant to be, and the soul they have was meant for a wanted baby and thus, is never quite comfortable.

Taking it a bit farther, because these people were never meant to be and were unwanted/resented/hated by their mother or both parents, they are the kind of people no one seems to remember. It's as if their life is more than slightly "off," it is tenuous, like a wraith that never quite makes it to solid form. You forget them because they aren't supposed to be here in the first place.

Can someone with the wrong soul, born at the wrong time to the wrong parents, be successful in life? Or are these the black sheep, the troubled and restless among us, the ones who simply never seem to "get it right"?

Now, I don't believe every loser and wallflower in the world is one of these. Everyone makes choices that impact their lives, and not everyone makes good choices. Some people are plain evil. Some are just losers. They have the opportunity to be something else, but tend to scuttle themselves, or be sabotaged by forces beyond their control, like abusive parents, criminals, natural disasters and so forth.

My theory is that people who not only weren't meant to be but are also unwelcome will never overcome this inadvertent theft of life. They know, on some level, that they should not be here, and that knowledge, no matter how deeply buried in the subconscious, negatively impacts their entire lives.

This is just my theory and of course, I have no way to prove it. But I can't disprove it, either.

I'd like to explore my theory in a novel at some point and see where the idea takes me.