I am Exactly Who I've Been Before

My name is Sarah. I am 27 years old. I’ve just recently graduated with my first Master’s degree. A lot of people will tell you that a Master’s degree is super difficult; and the gasp that I hear when I offer up the fact that I’m going to get my PhD in a couple years is one that I will never tire of, no matter how many times I hear it. 

I’m at a party, celebrating my recent accomplishment along with a couple other people from my graduating class. I’m not particularly close to any of them, I can only confidently name about two. But I don’t know a lot of people here, and a lot of people don’t know me. A lot of people choose not to know me, since my reputation precedes me. I’m not one for many words, but I’ve never been one to be humble. The world would like to believe that modesty is a good trait to have, but in my experience, one could stand to learn the most from being immodest, proud, and arrogant. You either get to be proven wrong, which is a privilege I’ve been afforded less and less of as of lately, or you get to continue and become a self-declared pariah. Both are extremely beneficial to a successful life.

My parents are in attendance, although they’ve been standing by the door for the past 10 minutes insisting that they’re going to leave “any minute now”. With my mother that means anywhere between 2 seconds or 20 minutes. With my father it means he wanted to leave about an hour ago. They’ve always complimented each other nicely like that, and they’re always pushing me to go out and find someone so that I can have a relationship like theirs. I could probably cure a terminal disease and they’ll still ask me if I’m seeing anyone.

My actual friends–the ones who have seen me at my worst and at my best–float around to various groups of people as the hosts of tonight’s party. My apartment’s living room is almost uncomfortably flooded with people, the heat beginning to reach my collar and make me sweat. A few people pass by and offer me their congratulations before heading to the kitchen, where the party continues to swell into. While the heat is becoming unbearable, the noise level is kept at a comfortable volume so as to not awake my elderly neighbors. One of the downsides of cheap rent is that anything above the low thrum of my television is considered to be as loud as a jet plane passing overhead to my neighbors across the hall. But I don’t mind, I’ve been to enough parties to last a lifetime.

I’ve always been told I’m more of an observer than a participant. Hell, I’m at my own graduation party and I’ve spent the majority of my time sitting on the couch and petting my cat. This isn’t unusual behavior from me, to be sitting here and taking stock of my immediate surroundings instead of chatting. But as I continue to look around at the guests, I make eye contact with a complete stranger who I’ve caught already staring at me. 

Their gaze makes my heart burst in my chest and tie itself back together all at once.

I’ve seen it before, many times actually. But not from this pair of eyes. You go through as many lives as I have and you begin to recognize certain people’s souls simply from the way they choose to see when no one is looking. I’ve found it in my parents, my best friends, my siblings, even my pets. But this one is special. This is my soulmate. 

The great thing about a soulmate is you meet them every single time. Love is not a privilege afforded to a few people on Earth during any given year. We all can choose whether to receive it, even platonic love. That’s another thing I’ve learned: you choose the love you receive. While you always meet your soulmate, you get to decide if they’re in your life or not. I’ve taken both courses of action, and both have their own positives and negatives. 

However, I do not know how many more times I can go through the pain of love. 

I have been Carlyle, Inga, Shirley, Annabeth, Deorwine, Adan, Sariyah, and many more that I could not even begin to name. I have lived a number of lives that I have the burden of remembering. When those who don’t remember their past lives talk about reincarnation, like it is some spectral concept and not a reality we all live, they mention death, sickness, and war as things that they could never live through multiple times. But sickness is as inevitable as death, and as humans continue to live war will always be a reality. Those I’ve come to terms with as hard truths of life. What no one mentions though is the suffering of choosing true love.

I’ve looked at my soulmate many times, in many different lives, and decided that I wished to spend the rest of that life with that version of them. I mold myself to fit into their unique shape, the one that changes every single time I meet them. I argue with them over fights we’ve rehashed hundreds of times over the course of a millennium. I love or hate pickles based on their unconscious decision to adore or loathe the vegetable. I hug them tightly, kiss them passionately, and care so deeply every single time. I have managed to find myself in their presence every single life, and always fall prey to their eyes that beckon me into their comparatively short lives most of the time. When I do not, I regret it for the rest of that life. When I do, I am acutely aware of how little time I have with that version I have fallen in love with.

So far, I am the only one I’ve found who actually remembers their past lives. I’ve spent many lives searching, and concluded that I am the only one cursed with the memory and blessed with the wisdom of the people I have been before. Anyone who claims anything else is either a liar or the answer to the mystery that is my life(s). I have been poor, rich, smart, dumb, a combination of identities most couldn’t even comprehend. The things that I’ve witnessed could not be condensed down into languages or ideas that would even make sense. I have weathered the past and will forge into the future. I’ve spent many of my lives contemplating my dilemma, and subsequently coming to terms with the fact that I will never know why my existence is as it is. I’ve solved some of life’s greatest questions, seen wondrous things, and retained all of this knowledge and learned from it. But I have never understood why I always choose love.

Maybe it is because, at the end of the day, I am human before I am the omniscient being most would claim me to be if they knew. I am all of the things I have been before and a simple person who is deserving of love. Who craves companionship even if I know it has to end. I have learned everything there is to know, and the one thing that keeps me excited for each new life is the innate knowledge that I will get to do it all over again with the person I love the most. And it will end, as most things do for humans. With all the love I feel is a twinge of fear, an edge in the back of my mind that knows there is no way my life ends that could even gather all of the emotions I feel, the moments I’ve lived through and make the heart-breaking event of outliving my soulmate or my soulmate going on without me okay. Love consumes every version of me. And I welcome it happily, with open arms, every single time.

Perhaps when I solve why I desire love so much I will finally be set free from my existence. But until then, I will look into a person’s soul and see the lives that came before them that they have the unfortunate circumstance of not knowing. And I will fall in love with them all over again, and suffer an existence without them all over again, even if only briefly. Because a life without love is one not worth living.