Every Moment of Breakup

I knew the author of this self-help book was familiar. I read her grandmother's book on relationships when it first came out in paperback. You would think I'd be used to this by now, but I still get surprised by subtle things like this. Who knew I had the proper biomental makeup to be be 'refreshed'? Who knew they where planning this program as far back as 2015. Who knew I would actually remember just about everything from my first life? There was a limited run of us. The get the data they need and honestly, we don't care why. Most of us are thrilled to be back. I'm fine. It's been interesting. Grade school, puberty, first job. Not really a 'first job' but the first in a while. Not much surprises me, surprisingly. All the great moments of my life, lived again, with most of my prior experiences intact. These are the things I have to record for them. They pour over these journals. But today gets the whole introduction because I'm writing about a too-familiar, unresolved topic in my second life. Of all the things I want to and have done again the one that still gets my best attention and gives me the greatest problems are relationships. Dating relationships. Love.

I don't know how many times Rasheda, my latest, and I reconciled. I keep going back-and-forth with things with her for years. We were in a trap, a spiral. Co-dependent, maybe. OK, here's the concise psychoanalysis: On the surface she said I was too difficult to connect with. Deep down I think I reminded her of some unanswered love. At the time deep down she blamed herself for the lack of attention. On the surface she blamed him. to fix this she tries to right the wrongs of the past by re-living it with a surrogate. She was attracted to me because I reminded her in some crucial way of the one who rejected her. As the relationship fails she can blame me for not pleasing her. This allows her to seek another and fail again, reinforcing the comfortable myth that her boyfriends are to blame. She is disappointed because the surrogate cannot possibly fix the pain of the past. The true fix lies deeper; facing the lie she told herself when she was first rejected, that she was ugly, that she was unworthy, that she was dirty...

Now the details. Of course, first life I didn't know any of that. I must have read those words or heard them. I remember the self-help books and therapist first-life. That was in my early thirties. It took years to see that pain in me, and longer still to uncover the lies I told myself. What does this have to do with dating? I had a dismal record before that, and a worse time after. I never did find the right one that life. I dated, lived with a couple more girlfriends. Since my "awakening" I always tried to understand what the woman may be thinking, feeling, needing. I started out trying to help them out of their cocoon. That didn't work. Later I tried to be supportive and understanding, but then I felt I was accommodating. All this knowledge and experience came with me into second-life. I have done better this time. But with relationships - I keep failing in new ways.

Oh, God. When I first met her, Rasheda seemed the reason I was refreshed - that such a thing was even possible. I would have missed her by a hundred years. Now, it's been six months apart after a three-year relationship. She's the fifth LTR second-life. I had eight in the last. You know, I'd have to count the number of jobs I've had or how many vehicles I've owned, but I know the number of relationships right away. Nothing else stands out in my mind as much as my loves. I'm not the civil planner that can meet a deadline or guy in apartment 3B, I'm the ex. So now I'm online journaling and looking over this resource on what to do after a breakup. It says we're supposed to look inside and ask why we were involved and why we broke up and how we should seek others again. Check. Got it. Reflect, recall, improve, succeed.

My carried over experiences have helped enormously with other things - I don't run away from things like I did. I'm kinder. I'm live with hope and optimism.

But even though my recall of relationships from last life is so clear I still haven't gotten it right this time. What's 'right'? For me it's the love that becomes a girlfriend, the girlfriend that becomes a wife, and the wife that becomes the widower or departed love. This time, so far, I fell out of love twice. A few times the woman lost interest in me, or became interested in someone else. Three of breakups were circumstantial - Laura and Deb were relocated. The other Deb had a family crisis. The random events I can understand. And sometimes when I slip and make the same mistake again I catch myself. But with Rasheda, well, thought I did everything right.

Rasheda is self-centered like Ashley but I came to see those moments as just an intensified dose of Rasheda. She wanted closeness like Sue and Jao but gave more back to me, too. That was a plus. She was even a little openly judgmental of others but I took it as her trying to find value in herself. She even once pushed one of my buttons - calling me dishonest, but I didn't blow up. I let that ruin a couple of good relationships. I can remember our conversation, the place, what we were wearing, where we were headed that day. She asked why always seem to be hastily deleting emails when she shows up. I told her I just like a clean inbox and wanted to finish business now that she showed up. She said I was 'hiding something'. I remembered I got all mad inside then I remembered the lessons from Ashley and Lydia from first-life, Jo and Karen from my second and I came right down. I showed her my phone as I deleted messages. I let her scroll through the trash. The next day I added her to that my primary email account. I never did that with the others. Never even thought of it. This time I did. And it felt right. And she loved it. That was a year ago. But she kept revisiting issues in privacy and openness, or the lack of it on my part. Clearly my actions did not help her along. She was determined, subconsciously it seems, to make me the reason to break up.

I find myself actively trying to 'store away' these memories for me next life. I don't know if that is good for the refresher program. None of us know the true purpose. We have our guesses - passing on generational knowledge? I know my first-life wisdom has definitely helped me. One thing I've gotten down is being single...again. What once was paralyzing, systemic pain numbs and lessons with each breakup. When I was a boy this time around I remembered dating and sex and having a girlfriend. But they were triggered by maybe an ad or a by a smell like perfume. There would be a kiss in a video and I would swear that just happened to me. I would recall more later on but it was like maybe a scene I had rehearsed if I had been an actor. I wasn't really attracted to girls until I was in seventh grade. When I did start have my second-life first kiss, that jittery awkwardness and calmed to comfort and relief. I had returned to something I missed. Her name was Cheryl, Cheryl Brightman. It was exciting for me. I was re-experiencing the newness of my first-life first love layered over by the memories of all that was ahead of me. I soon wanted to talk with Cheryl about relationships, her and I and the other crushes in the school. But I couldn't find the words in my twelve-year-old mind. I couldn't keep the mindset for very long. And Cheryl and my little friends just had no idea what I was talking about.

I've read this self-help resource before. This time it's not as powerful for me. It seems quaint, simple. It says to handle a break up, you should manage your life: stick to the familiar things you enjoy, try new things, connect with new people and make new to forgotten friends. OK. I'm sitting in Poncheros, eyes on this screen, split between my words and this self-help thing. Next to it is my lunch. I'm looking at a little bowl of creamy mushroom soup and a small roast-beef sandwich. Creamy soup? Cream is for sauces, not soup. And I never eat roast-beef. I'm always fish or chicken. And it looks like there are onions on the thing. That I swear would make my breath stink. But I'm eating it. I'm trying something different.

This soup actually isn't bad. What bugs me is recalling what I can about my first life loves. The ones that are all probably dust by now. Sometimes the pictures are there in my mind like stills or short clips. Sometimes just a smell or hint of a presence. I remember the same old problems then and now. Jealousy, mis-trust, embarrassing moments that shattered our little world, or at least our idea of it. But regardless of the level of remembrance or depth of clarity, I can recall every moment of breakup - that one look on each woman's face when the relationship died. That look of disappointment, the turned-away gaze, that new emotionless expression I never saw before. And I remember precisely what was happening inside me that caused me to say or to do the hurtful thing - the deliberately harsh words, the cutting remark, the little jab that cleared my soul and made me feel right and justified. Broken moments that brought down worlds. The kind of things we want to re-live and do better, that I haven't done better. Aren't we supposed to learn from our past life? Aren't we supposed to start further along life's path so we can move still further forward?