2024-06-04 Not wanting to leave my previous lives

The speaker reflects on their past lives and experiences, feeling like they have had multiple lifetimes within their current life. They struggled to sustain relationships and often stayed longer than they should have, causing difficulties. They made the decision to leave their last relationship due to personal instability and lack of confidence. They regretted this decision after returning to their mother's world and experiencing the challenges of being alone. They wonder if their relationship could work now but accept that they are no longer involved with anyone except a few close friends. They live a simple and solitary life, focusing on basic needs and trying to make good choices. They struggle with temptation for indulgent food but otherwise have no other desires or vices. They find contentment in simplicity and efficiency, occupying themselves with tasks and finding freedom in their daily life. I've had many lifetimes within this life, never mind past lives and reincarnation, that's a separate issue. But I've had many lives in this lifetime, many opportunities to have lives, lives that were started, explored and then collapsed. I couldn't sustain them, I couldn't keep interest, I couldn't go any further. The more I stayed, the harder it would be to extricate and I would always have to. But there were many that I stayed far longer than I should have, causing difficulty for all of us. I didn't know how to leave. Yes, if I am told I have to go, I might not like it, I might feel really upset, but I can accept it, I will process it. But if I'm making the choice, that's a whole different thing, because I feel like I didn't have to, that maybe I could still make it work, maybe it would be okay. And if I make the choice and then come to regret it, that's really difficult to deal with. And that explains why in basically all of the relationships, barring the last one, I stayed until I had no choice but to go. They just wouldn't accept me anymore, it was just too much. I felt it had reached that point on a number of occasions with my last attempt at a life and allowed myself to use my mother's failing health as an anchor point, as a way for me to choose to leave because right or wrong, good or bad, there was somewhere for me to land. I didn't have to start completely again from scratch. I had already done that once before and I didn't need somewhere to land and somehow I made it work, it worked and somehow I ended up in another relationship and out of that came a daughter. But I just couldn't leave this time, I just was so unstable, so unsure, no confidence, I was a shadow of my former self, which is why I stayed and stayed and accepted and accepted. And then suddenly I made the decision to go, helped by those around me who thought it would be best and I can't say they were wrong but had they not done so I might not have left because it wasn't that I was having a good relationship with my mum and of course I wanted to look after her and couldn't wait to see her. I hadn't seen her for 30 years, I didn't have a good relationship, I knew I was going from the frying pan into the fire and I didn't want to have to do that and yet I had no choice, at least that's how it seemed. At first, after the initial shock of telling my wife I'm going, we seemed to find a way back to each other, there was a lot of crying, a lot of loss and she was intending on coming to see me in a few months time, she just wasn't willing to give up, even though we didn't work, it couldn't work, we couldn't live together like we were. In a way, she was changing, she was going back into corporate, I didn't know who she was, we were just losing sight of each other, we'd lost sight of each other and in many ways had I stayed I would have just held her back, she needed to be free of me, to be free to do what she then later did. Find new work, buy a house, all of those things would have been fine by me to live in a house and yet it wouldn't have worked, we didn't, we weren't able to love each other properly. I was too needy, too insecure, she was too affected by having to support me, she could, but she didn't want to, because I wasn't giving her what she needed, I didn't want her, but I didn't want to lose her. And she was perhaps, of all the people I've known, the one I could play with the easiest, the one I could banter with, the one we could, who was so similar to me in so many ways. After I returned and discovered what it was like to be in the fire, to go back into my mother's world, the family, I just regretted terribly having given up what didn't have to be given up. I can't say for certain if at some point six months down the line and the COVID lockdown malarkey was just ten months away and I don't know what would have happened, how it would have worked had that taken place, because we would have been locked down in the same room with each other when at least previously I'd been able to cope by having space. I don't know how we would have dealt with it, I don't know what could have happened. So in many ways it might have saved me from having to go through that and then it failing and literally I had nowhere to go, couldn't have taken a flight, wasn't prepared to have vaccinations. I have no idea how I could have dealt with the breakdown of our relationship to the point where I wasn't able to stay there anymore. Alright, there was another woman at the top but I couldn't live with her either and I might have been forced to again and I just couldn't do that. I somehow couldn't cope with any of it, all of it was wrong for me, I just, I tried, I wanted it to work so much, I tried to bend as much as I could, to change as much as I could, to let go of myself, to fit in, to be acceptable, it didn't work. But there are times because we haven't, she hasn't let go of me entirely every so often I have heard from her and I have been so pleased to hear, to actually spend a moment or two back in her company. Although it's only textual, it still has all the old flavour of the connection that drew me to her, that allowed us to be together. But, and I even wonder, I've wondered a few times, has there been enough time, have I healed, have we changed enough, could it work now? Practically it's impossible, but in theory could it? I don't know, it's hard to say, maybe for a few weeks, but I suspect the issues that were there would just arise again. But that's not something I'm dwelling on, it's not something I'm wanting, I have accepted that I am no longer involved with her, with anyone. Except the very few people I want to spend time with here, for a few hours on a Tuesday evening and occasionally from time to time, otherwise I'm alone, I just am alone. I don't know if it's healthy, I don't know if I'm well, I have noticed myself making a few strange choices, I just understand I do make strange choices from time to time. They seem like they seem to be okay at the time, but then afterwards I realise, no, not sure what I was thinking there. I get it, I may not be well, I may be able to cope, I may be able to hide it in a sense because of the fact that I know how to live simple, to do things myself, to just get on with it. I somehow still know how to do it, even if I'm not well it still seems to work. Even people who are really ill can still function in the right circumstances. People who are schizophrenic can still function, I've met some. I'm not looking for help, I don't need a diagnosis, I don't want to take any more pills than I already do. I have enough trouble dealing with the physical issues of type 2 diabetes when I am not disciplined enough in the diet I choose to eat. I still feel the need to be free, while I recognise what I do and I am varied in what I have, it is still not the diet of someone who is diabetic. I've done that in my life, when I lived a life where I was disciplined and exercised and weighed less than I do now. I liked the way I felt, I felt good about myself in many ways, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sustain it forever. It was almost like becoming a religious fanatic, I could sustain it as long as I could and then I slowly slipped back to my natural ways of being. That is who I am, I can only be someone else for so long. Because I'm on my own, no one sees what I do, I don't have to answer to anyone. I can just do what I do, recognise whether or not good choices, bad choices, try to accept what I cannot change, try to change what I can change, carry on in between, keep it simple. No hopes or dreams, just keep it working, keep it going. I only want food, comfortable bed, shelter. I like to be warm, I'm not always warm, not here anyway, but I accept that. A lot of how I live comes out of being able to accept what for many people wouldn't be acceptable. Very few pleasures. The only pleasures I really have that I could actually have would be food-wise and I mostly deny myself those. The kind of food I would love to eat is takeaway, very expensive and I have no right to indulge like that, whether I have the money or not. Yes, I do earn a little bit, usually every week and use that just to sustain myself simply in the food department. But for someone like me who misses deliciousness, I do struggle not to give in to temptation. But that's the only thing, there's no other temptations that I have need of. I don't take drink or drugs, I don't seek the company of women sexually, I don't have to go anywhere, I don't need to acquire stuff I don't need. And the things I need, even those things are not always straightforward to acquire. But as part of the simplicity, it's easier for me to let go of all of this stuff. Even though I live in the most expensive material thing I've ever had, I've never owned a property. But this is the next highest paid thing one usually acquires and I have one and I never wanted to have one. I don't even want to drive it, I only do so out of necessity to ensure that it doesn't seize up, that it doesn't rust up, that things are kept loose. Otherwise I wouldn't bother, I just want somewhere to be. That's the price of having this somewhere to be. And as far as I can see, there isn't anywhere else I can be. I can't change this for any other form of living that I can imagine being able to do. There may be another solution that I don't see, but as far as I'm concerned there isn't. I've tried all the others, this is the only thing that comes close to working. Nothing is perfect, I don't expect perfection, I just attempt to keep it simple and efficient. And it's as efficient as I can make it, as simple as I understand how to be. I have plenty to occupy me and amuse me and keep me interested. And in many ways I feel like I have something to do every day, things to get done, so that in a sense after work, in inverted commas, I'm free to be and do whatever I want. I am free to do that anyway, but I like to have something that feels disciplined, something I do regularly. I always arrive, I'm ready to go into the library at 9 o'clock every time it's open, no matter what. And that to me, getting up at a certain time, preparing myself so that I can do that, is similar to what people do when they usually do their working experience. I didn't have to do it, I chose to do it. It seems to keep me in the world somehow. I wouldn't want to let go of it. That's why it works for me to have that. And of course, while I'm there, I make use of the facilities. I drink their water, I use their toilet, I have access to the internet, I download whatever I find I want, I find a way to do it in the way that best works for me. I come and go as I please. I should feel free, but I don't. I am surviving, thriving, yes, but I'm also coping. I know I would benefit greatly from having the support of another, greatly. The feeling of lightness, I miss not having anyone I can rely on. Anyone who always wants to know what I'm doing and help me and is willing to support me in exchange for me supporting them, of course. It's a partnership, but without it, with the fact that I have to do it all myself, while on the one hand is the only way for me to have the kind of space and solitude and sense of presence that I have, but is actually harder, so much harder in a way that it's hard to describe. Having had the experience of partners who make me realise, make me feel I'm not alone and that they are able to do things without me having to tell them what to do and we can talk about and come up with the most efficient solution to a problem, all of those things are great. I might have access to their friends, spend time in other people's company, but as a result of their choices, their family, and it's great in many ways, but it's not real, it's not really what I need. Solitude makes more sense, but actually a family, a community of people that it works would be better still. I don't know how to find that, I'm not even looking, I don't think I'd recognise it even if it was right outside and yet it seems like that would be what I need. But that's only how it seems, it could be that how I'm actually living right now is exactly what I need and that's as far as I can go.