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Although I doubt I had a past life as an Egyptian princess or a cousin to Dorothy Parker, I have no doubt that the people I love and am close to now share traits with those from the past. Had I simply remembered why Marshall Marx was a bad relationship choice in my freshman year of college, I might have also realized that Michael the programmer was an equally bad choice to have three dates with when I was a middle-aged, post-divorce single (in both cases, it was not only the 1970s glasses that should have tipped me off, but the basic fact that they each were unable to talk to people).
Even though I don’t think channeling unseen entities from my past life as a peasant in Hungary 300 years ago is going to help me navigate sex and relationships any better, I do believe that looking back on my dating and friendship past lives makes me more insightful and smarter about what I’m doing today. Or, to put it another way, better I make some new mistakes, rather than the same old ones over and over.
You see, I am old enough now to recognize, that when it comes to both to boyfriends and best girlfriends, I have a habit of repeating myself. As daring or adventurous as I may be, I have themes that kinda repeat in my close friends and lovers.
My BFF Chef BJ is not so different in many ways than my best friend in college, the sultry Martina (name changed), whose head for business was always trumped by her bod for sin, as Melanie Griffin once famously said.
My BF A has more than a little bit in common both with my college flame, the future English professor J, whose idea of a good time was lounging around playing the Stones and reading Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queen” aloud while drinking sherry-spiked tea or B&B.
The delight I feel today in the company of smart, beautiful women like my friends C, V, P and AVF has some true connections with how fun it always was back in the day to hang with my amazingly pretty sister N, whose beauty was matched by her sharpness, whether the mesmerized fellas hanging round got that or not.
And the fun I have with my anarchist friend C, my kickass mountain woman pal Amy, my buddy DZ and my home girl and business partner Lisa is a lot like what I felt planning adventures with my writer pal Barbara B in Brooklyn, when I was just out of college. Our forays around the city to visit Russian Brighton Beach, Mexican Sunset Park, and punk/Puerto Rican Loisada are not dissimilar to the scene and culture surfing my friends and I do now (except that now we explore new cities in different states en pack.)
Another feeling that hasn’t changed that much is the great love and tenderness and amusement and joy and anger and rage I often felt—all at the same time—for my little year old son Zach, who just didn’t stop crying and waking up every few hours till he was at least three (he got so frustrated cause he couldn’t do all the things he wanted to). I sometimes feel exactly the same things now, when I talk with my marvelous, smart and hard-working grown-up son Z, who’s managed to remain one of my favorite people on the planet not only because he’s my child, but because that same appetite for experience and learning (still) fills his heart.
In other words, while remembering my past lives from 200 years ago just gives me a headache, remembering people I’ve cared for in the past and understanding what they have in common with those in my life now just totally rocks.
The interesting exercise, IMHO, is to look at your past relationships, and look at your friends and lovers now and see what the lines are you can draw. Do you friends and partners come in types? Are there themes you can recognize? And if so, what are they?
My favorite friends are all unique, but I can see them in related ways. It’s not that they’re the same, far from it—but I do discern some themes.
- The man who wants to change the world, at least a part of it- I’ve dated or been close friends with more than one person who’s organizing principle was fighting racism, addressing social equity issues,
