Hi Firegirley. I wonder how much past life information you are looking for and why you seek it. Your intended search sounds different from what is usually the purpose of meditation which is an adjunct to a life practice which aspires to becoming one's true self, or recognizing one's true self. I hear and tend to believe that we typically have had myriad past lives. I am having enough trouble with the information I carry about my own present life and what has occurred within it. I have been told by two sources some things about my previous lives. One was a list of about 7 lifetimes which included prince and thief and centurion. The second source mentioned stuff , explicit stuff, about the centurion life that is more sad and sorrowful than I can bear, 'head on'. Neither time did I ask about my previous lives, although I might have said I was curious , in passing. I have only been here for a few days. I do not understand why anyone would look back to discover who they are. Who I was is not who I am. It is who I was. I have grown. I believe there is a "constant" self that is I, that is common to each life, but that is the Soul or Highest Self that I am, and would rarely if ever have been the "who" I esteemed myself to be. Who I think I am is not often the true 'me', and the true me is never and can never be 'separate' from the All, or Godhead. I am saying things I have come to believe are true. There are teachers of Truth from whom I have been learning and I am not ashamed of them, but am honored to know that they both know and love me. The loneliness of which you speak is what makes me wish that I could help you, but I cannot tell what you are willing to investigate. If you are exclusively interested in past lives, I have already said enough. If you are interested in knowing yourself, your real self, your ego-transcended self , then it would be important to find a teacher of such ... a self-realized, awakened, enlightened master of their own non-separative self, ie that Self that is in living communion with the Ultimate Self, God, or Eternal Cause... from where and whom you, as I and all others, come. As for me, I am not self-realized and continue to aspire towards this, because I briefly experienced the formless divine Self and I liked it, (loved) Absolutely. So I pray and meditate and read certain books, and get angry and share what little I can. Love is indeed essential to fulfillment. Love is not confined to personal associations. Love is that Whole in which all else takes place. The beloved that you seem to have lost after high school is surely doing well and is accepted and appreciated within the Whole that is Love and Its Consciousness. He may even look lovingly upon you now. My dearly beloved "dead" wife is not really gone, or dead, and a couple of weeks ago my psychic friend witnessed her healing my lower back, which has been pain-free ever since. Now I have to decide whether I will tell her aged mother in Florida that she has done this! How can I not try? I wish you the very best- the Truth- Firegirley!