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My friend X

Sorry to hear about your dog. At least there's some compensation in the fact that he lived a good long life and didn't die prematurely. I hope you get to meet him again some day hug2.gif
 
I'm very sorry about your dog, Tanguerra. They really can leave a monstrous, great, empty hole in a person's life when they die. It was interesting that "X" was wearing his "name-sake" shirt. Has his personality been consistently like Sheldon's over the centuries? You are in a unique position to observe to what degree personality changes from life to life. That program is one of the few on TV that I like, but conducting a relationship with Sheldon would have many challenges.
 
So sorry about your little friend's passing. They are such wonderful, faithful companions... and their little lives much too short. Their deaths are never easy... never. But they only deepen our passion for love... it's in the emptiness.


I love the synchronous X on his t-shirt. Of course he has that shirt! And I hope he wears it many times in your company.


That embrace? Well... they last forever!


Blessing my friend.


Tman
 
I am very sorry for the loss of your furrbaby. They truly become like our children, mine thinks she is the third daughter ...
 
BriarRose said:
I'm very sorry about your dog, Tanguerra. They really can leave a monstrous, great, empty hole in a person's life when they die. It was interesting that "X" was wearing his "name-sake" shirt. Has his personality been consistently like Sheldon's over the centuries? You are in a unique position to observe to what degree personality changes from life to life. That program is one of the few on TV that I like, but conducting a relationship with Sheldon would have many challenges.
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Hi BriarRose.


Thank you for your kind words. Yes, I will miss my little dog, but he was very old, so it was a blessed release for him I think.


X is not exactly like Sheldon Cooper (of course) but he does have a lot of similarities and, yes, those have not changed greatly. There is some stuff that is specific to the modern day - an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction and a vast collection of groovy T-shirts for instance. X has a desire to one day be part man/part robot - which is his idea of 'immortality'. I've never been able to convince him that he is already immortal. There was once an entire episode of Big Bang devoted to Sheldon's desire to live long enough for the technology to be invented so that he could be 'uploaded' into a robot, which was pretty funny because this is also one of X's 'obsessions'. :)


He does have a certain sense of superiority over others, as though he knows better than everyone about everything. Like Sheldon, he really is terribly clever, and really does know the answer to most questions, and frequently inclined to show off his knowledge, which is his version of 'small talk' even with complete strangers which can startle the unsuspecting! He is completely blind to some social/emotional IQ issues (although not quite as much as Sheldon) but he is really very sweet natured most of the time so most people (who know him) don't mind and like Sheldon's friends, mostly tend to overlook it if he drops some kind of 'clanger'.


He is hilariously incapable of keeping a secret or telling a lie. In fact, if one wants to get a piece of gossip out around town the first thing to do is tell X about it and swear him to secrecy. :)


Many of these things have not changed over the centuries. He has a certain innocence about him that is almost childlike. It's hard to describe, but it's like he's not really at 'home' on Earth. In the TV show Sheldon always fantasizes that he's part Vulcan or something and X is a bit like that somehow. He doesn't seem to know or care about consequences of his actions or anything as dull as that! He's always been a bit of a renegade. He's always been quite playful with a very 'cheeky' streak to him. He's one of a kind, that's for sure!
 
ChrisR said:
Sorry to hear about your dog. At least there's some compensation in the fact that he lived a good long life and didn't die prematurely. I hope you get to meet him again some day hug2.gif
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Thanks Chris. I had a little 'flash' of him bounding about on green grass happily, healthy and full of fun once more, just after he died. I'm sure he's up in puppy dog heaven having a wonderful time. I'm sure we'll meet again.
 
Tinkerman said:
...That embrace? Well... they last forever!
Blessing my friend.


Tman
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Thanks Tinkerman. I really couldn't say how long the 'embrace' lasted. Time stood still. Everything seemed to 'stop' until I felt better. It was lovely that's for sure.
 
I read this thread over, in it's entirety, and was struck by a question. Has this relationship ever been romantic in this lifetime? I understand relationships with the opposite sex that are platonic, yet involve unexplained yearning. If it has never been romantic, do you have any theories as to what blockage might exist that keeps it from happening? Is there, for instance, a substantial difference in age? That isn't something that I would infer from your posts. There is obviously a meeting of the mind, and intellect. You share a sense of humour, and have an intricate and rich past together. I am in the process of reading a book about pre-life planning by Robert Schwartz. How do you feel about this subject, and is that what's involved in your not being a "couple"? It sounds as if you planned to meet, and be in each other's lives, but made a "soul agreement" to remain platonic. It sometimes seems as if I have about as much emotional intelligence as Sheldon Cooper, and I am sorry for the barrage of questions! I would like to understand whether pre-life planning has any validity. I suspect that it does, but your story might shed some light on it. Is it possible that your feelings about "X" have made you who you are as a person?
 
BriarRose said:
I read this thread over, in it's entirety, and was struck by a question. Has this relationship ever been romantic in this lifetime? I understand relationships with the opposite sex that are platonic, yet involve unexplained yearning. If it has never been romantic, do you have any theories as to what blockage might exist that keeps it from happening? Is there, for instance, a substantial difference in age? That isn't something that I would infer from your posts. There is obviously a meeting of the mind, and intellect. You share a sense of humour, and have an intricate and rich past together. I am in the process of reading a book about pre-life planning by Robert Schwartz. How do you feel about this subject, and is that what's involved in your not being a "couple"?
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It is described in the thread, but it's very long, so you could easily have missed it. We were 'together' every day, inseparable, for about 5 or 6 (rather wonderful) months, then he suddenly left me and I didn't see him for about 7 years. It was a very bitter time. He would not give me an explanation. The best I got is he told one of his friends it 'didn't work out'.


The reason he left me (I think) is because he really wants to have children. At the time we met I already had two fairly small ones and said I didn't want any more. This was just in casual conversation at the time, but he left me pretty much the next day without any explanation and I was beyond devastated. I didn't work it out until years later when it began to dawn on me what an enormously big deal it is to him to have kids one day. I recalled the occasion when we were sitting around eating pizza with my kids rather cosily in front of the TV and had this conversation and I felt something change in him then. At the time I thought it was because it was all a bit too domestic for him. Now I wonder if the reverse is true?


We ran into each other years later and became friends again. He was with this other woman, Y. He was unfaithful to her (not for the first time and not with with me) and they broke up. We had another rather brief and silly fling which lasted only about a month that time because he's still hung up on Y and was trying to get her back (behind my back). I think he was using me to make her jealous. He really is a rascal! Once we got over that, we've been friends ever since, apart from the odd falling out, but I've never been tempted to try anything 'romantic' with him again.

...It sounds as if you planned to meet, and be in each other's lives, but made a "soul agreement" to remain platonic. It sometimes seems as if I have about as much emotional intelligence as Sheldon Cooper, and I am sorry for the barrage of questions! I would like to understand whether pre-life planning has any validity. I suspect that it does, but your story might shed some light on it.
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I'm not big on the whole 'pre-planning' theory as I've said more than once. Perhaps it works for some people. It all sounds a bit too plodding and bureaucratic to me and doesn't gel with how I see the universe working, which is a far more chaotic and fluid sort of affair. Different people probably have different experiences. I don't know.


My theory is that he keeps following me around! Certainly he keeps turning up in my life at odd moments, that's for sure! I've written before about my idea that we are engaged in an 'experiment' or a 'bet', so maybe that's pre-planning of a sort?

I had a sort of lucid dream/meditation once where X and I were in a spirit state, up in 'heaven' and were having an argument, something we never, ever do in real life and never have even at our worst moments [we hadn't until that time at least]. Anyway, in the 'vision' we were sitting around somewhat bored, up in 'heaven' [he was 'silver' and I was 'gold' - it made perfect sense at the time] and we could not agree which was the worst kind of separation from a loved one: for someone you love to die, if so, to die of an illness or accident, to die if it was your fault, if it wasn't your fault, to disappear and never know what happened to them, or to be in love with someone who did not love you...
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Maybe we're just two naughty sprites playing around to amuse ourselves and relieve the boredom of eternity? I don't begin to know for sure. I know that in this life I wished and wished and wished for him, then one day, when I thought I couldn't bear it any more (and he was in the middle of the biggest crisis of his life) blam! there he was and nothing was ever the same again. :)

Is it possible that your feelings about "X" have made you who you are as a person?
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I wouldn't say that exactly. Certainly he has been a profound influence on me time and time again (not just this life) as no doubt I have been on him. The world would be a very dull and empty place to me without him in it.
 
Thank you for the reply. I'm glad you had a few months together. Has he been able to articulate why he left? On some level, your soul must know what the real reason is. Going over old ground might imperil your friendship. When I want to talk "relationship", my husband generally falls asleep. :laugh: Nice avoidance mechanism, I would say, and so "male". Robert Schwartz books about pre-planning are the most convincing I've read on the subject, and for me, the best so far at making sense of the Universe. I'm sure souls must differ in the amount of planning they do - you are probably a "winging it" person, while I probably would have a plan, and stick to it. As I learn on this forum, it is quite astonishing how unique souls really are. It's easier to try to understand people on a "soul level", without the social conventions that are followed when we meet in the "flesh".
 
BriarRose said:
Thank you for the reply. I'm glad you had a few months together. Has he been able to articulate why he left? On some level, your soul must know what the real reason is...
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We don't talk about all that. There are much more interesting things to discuss! Even if he knows or remembers why, he is usually very reticent about discussing things like that. Besides I'm pretty sure it's the reason I describe above.


As I say, I'm no longer tempted to have a romantic relationship with him in any case, so it makes being 'platonic' easy. It was fun at the time. It's fun now. It's all good.
 
Your posts are often wise, Tanguerra, and always a revelation to me. Please forgive if I was too blunt. You and X are mysterious in a way that none of my relationships have ever been. My life has many complications, but my love relationships have been simple. I believe in preplanning, so I must have said, "Okay, I'll go into that body, and deal with all those things, but please, no tangled love affairs!" :laugh: I am learning a lot from you, though. Thank you for sharing this story. Did you write about it in your book? Would you ever want to write the story as it happened, and give it a fantasy ending? I suppose the point is that it never ends, and that is for you, the beauty of the thing.
 
BriarRose said:
Your posts are often wise, Tanguerra, and always a revelation to me. Please forgive if I was too blunt. You and X are mysterious in a way that none of my relationships have ever been.
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Thank you BriarRose. It's mysterious to me too - or should I say, it's 'mysterious' (intriguing) on some levels but not on others. X amuses me and fills me with delight and I like to think it's mutual. I can't imagine life without him in it. It would be (almost) insupportably dull.


Nobody understands him like I do and nobody just accepts me for what I am like he does, although sometimes he has a funny way of showing it. Perhaps sometimes we annoy each other ... We're both fairly 'odd' people but I just love him to bits. I've known him again and again for thousands of years after all. He's always just been there, even if he doesn't remember on a conscious level, there's a degree of easy familiarity amidst all the 'voodoo' ... For example, a couple of nights ago a bunch of pals were all over at my place, including a new prospective 'beau' of mine, and X. Things are getting back to normal in our social circle now after the 'alleged incident' that went on for about a year and a half. I've been trying to gently explain the 'X factor' in my life to this potential new beau (no secrets). He is a 'villager' and knows X slightly from around 'the village' but had never really got to know him very well and expressed mystification at what the attraction could possibly be between me, (marvellous me), and this really rather peculiar person who is X. Anyway, we were all laughing and chatting in the living room and X and I had a very brief (rather cute and amusing) altercation about who should put the kettle on and make some tea for everyone ... 'Like an old married couple'... (We compromised). You had to be there... It was familiar, and domestic and intimate and brother/sisterly and ... at the same time it was two 'higher beings' searching for a 'rational outcome' to a problem. Hard to explain. [i put the kettle on, he got the cups out] :)


Although at one level X doesn't really understand it (it doesn't compute). Although he doesn't remember 'our past' deep down somewhere he knows, I'm sure of it. I'm always happy to see him and vice versa (now that we've got over our fight). He always lights up a room (as I do) at an otherwise dull party or whatever. Together we shine - like the sun and the moon. He makes me laugh. He's made me cry more than once (not just this life) but he's never dull, that's for sure and I wouldn't swap it for anything.

Did you write about it in your book? Would you ever want to write the story as it happened, and give it a fantasy ending? I suppose the point is that it never ends, and that is for you, the beauty of the thing.
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This thread 'My friend X' is as close as I think I'll ever get to writing out 'our story' in full and I think it stands on its own merits as a testament to true love, eternity, soul mates and all that jazz. Happy 'fantasy' endings are for nursery rhymes. Life is a journey. Things happen. You deal with it. That's what makes it fun and interesting (in my view).


In my book, which I wrote during the period of our most recent 'reconilliation' (the past 8 years or so), I wrote this which was the underlying wisdom and distilled message of the whole thing. It was one of the first bits I wrote. I wrote it for him. I wrote it about him. This is what he has taught me. This is what I have learned from him. This is what I am teaching to him. It is a very important lesson. It is a lesson worth many lives of torment and trouble:

The highest ideal form of romantic love is true love. The sublime, spiritual feeling of true love does not require any type of possession of the other. True love is serene, eternal and unchanging. True love wants only what is best for the other. True love has no fear of being deserted. True love is outward shining like the sun and does not require reflection as the moon does in order to glow.
Unconditional love - whether for a lover, a friend or a child - exists in the real world in spite of life's ups and downs, bad behaviour, bad moods, bad luck and bad hair days. In its gentle embrace all are nurtured, attended to and encouraged. Unconditional love is not withdrawn in order to punish or taken away when the money runs out. Unconditional love is not bestowed as a reward for good behaviour or traded for sex. It just is - night and day, rain or shine.
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I was on You-Tube all afternoon yesterday, listening to "old music". I have always like the song "Diamonds and Rust", by Joan Baez. I actually thought about you and X, although perhaps I still have it wrong! She was writing about her relationship with Bob Dylan, and it must have been a soul-level connection. My husband didn't understand unconditional love at first, but he does now. I think it related to the strings his parents attached to every bit of affection they doled out. You can't buy it, you don't earn it, it just "is". I hope your new beau works out. It seems that it would be very hard for a real, flesh and blood man to compete with your concept of your relationship with X. Most of the men I know would be too insecure to handle it. You sound a lot like a widow. After my father died, my mother enshrined him in her mind for a time, even his faults. I suppose in a way, you are X's widow, if you take all your past history into account. I am not a very romantic person - my husband is more so. But, I still think of us as "Romeo and Juliette". I'm sure the rest of the world doesn't see us that way, just two late middle-aged people holding hands. When we are alone, we are young again, and perfectly beautiful, and always in love. The years, and the "bumps and bruises' go away. I guess my definition of "storybook" is different than yours. It's the quiet contentment of being together into old age, with the one you love, and little drama. Love can be "imperishable", and still work out. I am told that not many people have that. I hope I never find out!
 
BriarRose said:
... I hope your new beau works out. It seems that it would be very hard for a real, flesh and blood man to compete with your concept of your relationship with X. Most of the men I know would be too insecure to handle it.
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We'll see how we go. There's nothing for a potential 'beau' to be jealous about in my friendship with X (there is a zero per cent chance of us ever 'hooking up' again this life, short of some kind of miracle for instance). By the same token anyone who couldn't handle it would just have to say 'bye bye' because I wouldn't have any time for someone who felt threatened by my friendships with anyone at all, especially X. X does grow on people after a while, once they get past his outward eccentricities. He really is very sweet natured and quite charming when he's being good...


I've explained about 'my condition' ages ago and he is very accepting of all that kind of thing, so that's a good start. For the moment we're just friends anyway, so we'll see if anything more develops. Let's see if he passes this test?
 
Well, let us know how it works out. The old adage, "Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May", comes to mind. We may get many more chances in other lives, but I still want a few more roses in this one, as you must, too! "You go, girl!", as the kids say. My daughter admonishes me not to use phrases like that - they don't fit my "age, and dignity". :laugh:
 
BriarRose said:
My daughter admonishes me not to use phrases like that - they don't fit my "age, and dignity". :laugh:
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What she really means is she doesn't like us "old people" using their slang.
 
BriarRose said:
... I am not a very romantic person - my husband is more so. But, I still think of us as "Romeo and Juliette". I'm sure the rest of the world doesn't see us that way, just two late middle-aged people holding hands. When we are alone, we are young again, and perfectly beautiful, and always in love. The years, and the "bumps and bruises' go away. I guess my definition of "storybook" is different than yours. It's the quiet contentment of being together into old age, with the one you love, and little drama. Love can be "imperishable", and still work out. I am told that not many people have that. I hope I never find out!
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There are lots of ways for love to 'work out'. A long and happy marriage is one of them, but there are others. I quite like the idea of X and me being friends until we're very very old (if we ever get very very old). I quite like the idea of us alternately gossiping, bickering and laughing boisterously on some verandah somewhere, with rugs over over knees. Who knows? Time will tell.
 
That's a lovely idea. Maybe, you will live together, and bicker amiably over the toast, and the morning news. That is always part of any long relationship, married or not!
 
BriarRose said:
I was on You-Tube all afternoon yesterday, listening to "old music". I have always like the song "Diamonds and Rust", by Joan Baez. I actually thought about you and X, although perhaps I still have it wrong!
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No you have it right.


'...We both know what memories can bring,


They bring diamond and rust...'
 
How strange that you replied today! I tried to sing that song all afternoon. It's very difficult, and I think only Joan Baez does it justice. I have always loved that lyric. Tanguerra, you are the "girl on the half-shell", the "madonna that was yours for free". Love is like that - it has no price, but sometimes it offers rust with the diamonds.
 
The song that describes my only semi-requited love as an adult, is Dolly Parton's "Here You Come Again". Not a work of lyric art, but so evocative!
 
You might like this BriarRose. This is (obviously) a topic very dear to my heart. From my 'Captain's blog'...


"Fantasy v Reality"

...Love never goes out of style. We have always loved soppy love stories with happy endings, we lap up the tragic tales of starcrossed lovers like thirsty kittens and we have done so for thousands of years. It’s not just women either. Men do it too. Long before the invention of the ‘chick flick’ Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina. D.H. Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Hogey Charmichael wrote Star Dust.. men all of them...
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'... Bitter sweet memories, that is all I'm taking with me...

.. And I wish you joy and happiness, but above all of this, I wish you love..."
 
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I often feel like I'm trapped in a Grimms' fairytale, under a spell, where nobody believes me, but I know what I'm doing and more importantly what I'm feeling is true. I know it's important and imperative.


A while back I was talking to someone who knows X very well, for many years, someone whose opinion I respect. I've known her for quite a while too. She knows I'm not silly and have plenty of admirers at my beck and call if I want them. She was perplexed. I said 'Why would I make up something like this? Why not Brad Pitt or George Clooney? Or somebody, anybody more worthy (or something) of my undying eternal love? If I was going to make this up, why would I pick X? If I was just showing off or trying to get attention... ? I just can't help it. It just is what it is.' She got it (sort of).


My love is like a story book story... (Be careful what you wish for).


The Six Swans

.. [Once upon a time a beautiful lady married a king, but there was a catch. Her brothers were under a spell]...The poor girl thought, "I can no longer stay here. I will go and seek my brothers." And when night came, she ran away, and went straight into the forest. She walked the whole night long, and next day also without stopping, until she could go no farther for weariness. Then she saw a forest-hut, and went into it, and found a room with six little beds, but she did not venture to get into one of them, but crept under one, and lay down on the hard ground, intending to pass the night there. Just before sunset, however, she heard a rustling, and saw six swans come flying in at the window. They alighted on the ground and blew at each other, and blew all the feathers off, and their swan's skins stripped off like a shirt. Then the maiden looked at them and recognized her brothers, was glad and crept forth from beneath the bed. The brothers were not less delighted to see their little sister, but their joy was of short duration. "Here canst thou not abide," they said to her. "This is a shelter for robbers, if they come home and find thee, they will kill thee." "But can you not protect me?" asked the little sister. "No," they replied, "only for one quarter of an hour each evening can we lay aside our swan's skins and have during that time our human form; after that, we are once more turned into swans." The little sister wept and said, "Can you not be set free?" "Alas, no," they answered, "the conditions are too hard! For six years thou mayst neither speak nor laugh, and in that time thou must sew together six little shirts of starwort [stinging nettles] for us. And if one single word falls from thy lips, all thy work will be lost." And when the brothers had said this, the quarter of an hour was over, and they flew out of the window again as swans...
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It's like that. Hard to explain.. It just is what it is...
 
I feel that way about my past lives, Tanguerra. If I was making it up, I would be Scarlet O'Hara, not the scruffy, impoverished, Rose Quinn Rooney. None of my PLs are exactly ego boosters! I have been reading a book by an "energy worker" who purports that it is possible to contact a future version of your self that knows how your issue was resolved. Maybe X's current persona is a test of your love. In the vein of "will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64"? Can you imagine the "between lives" planning session? "Will you love me if I'm a nerd, not a glamorous RAF pilot?" Personally, my favorite people are nerds, so "heck" yes!
 
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