a yearning

I have this desire. It’s nothing new, but it is continuously getting stronger. The more I see of the world, the more places I visit, the more things I do, the more it grows. I don’t think it’s wrong or a bad omen, but it actually can make me a little sad, or maybe a little claustrophobic in my own skin.
I want to live several lifetimes. Not just so I don’t die, I am not afraid of the next life—not like I used to be. I am still nervous about the next life, simply because my imagination fails me. The concept of eternity being forever has always made me a little nervous. Not in the whole ‘forever damned to fire’ kind of nervous, simply in ‘wow, forever? That might last awhile.’
The yearning to have more than my share of life is merely a result of how much I truly enjoy the world in which we live—even though parts are so fucked up and drive me crazy at times. So here are some of the reasons I want or things I would do with multiple lifetimes.
1. I want several different bodies. Well, not other people’s bodies (although I wouldn’t cry if I turned into Ricky Martin), just my own, over and over again, hopefully a little more in-shape than this first time around. Why do I want so many Brandon bodies? Because it is a tattoo canvas, of course. There are so many I would like to do, so many designs and themes that I have come up with. Really, they are very cool. The trouble is you can’t wipe your canvas clean just to bleed and ink it again. Maybe if we were built like the Barbie doll make-up and hair station where you could do her make-up and stuff and constantly put in a new batch of store bought hair to replace the old one you cut at differing angle degrees (Not that I had one, I must of heard of it somewhere…), we could just slip into a new batch of skin… Of course, tattooing would need to be cheaper, that could get expensive.
2. I want to live in so many different places, and not just for a few months or years, I want to spend lifetimes at each one. New York City alone could be explored for four or fiver generations worth. Then, move on to Hawaii, San Diego, Seattle, Little Rock. Ok, got a little carried away there. But really, I could spend a lifetime in Central Park alone, investigating every stone carving on every bridge, fountain, and staircase. You can’t really do it sufficiently in a solitary lifetime. I don’t want to see it and move on to the next one, I want to be immersed in it, become a New Yorker, a Hawaiian, an Irishman, a Swede.
3. I want to do so many different things, and again, not for a moment, but for real. I want to be a novelist (maybe this lifetime, we will see). I want to spend at least one lifetime, maybe more, at Disney World in one of their shows. One season be the Beast, the next, Eric and marry the mermaid (or, even better, be the mermaid, or just fuck it and be the merman!), the next be Aladdin. What a life! I also want to be a detective (specifically one of the Hardy boys [probably Joe] and/or Nancy Drew. I want a lifetime as an artist, maybe fantasy painter, maybe cartoonist or comic book creator. To simply be a beach bum with Matthew McConaughey’s body and a library worth of books. (Oh, yeah. One lifetime will be entirely devoted to reading.)
4. I also simply want more than a lifetime with people. My parents, my brother, my lover, my friends, my kids. To only know them for a lifetime on earth is not enough. Most, we won’t even know for a lifetime, as they tend to die. Rude much? Ideally, they would travel through each lifetime with me, adapting to whatever the specific lifetime holds and entails.
This was not a comprehensive list, nor a list that is really valuable or thought provoking to anyone else. But these are a few of the things that are on my mind more often than is healthy. Maybe this is what Heaven will be like. God’s supposed to make Earth into a new Heaven after awhile, isn’t He? Then I really can spend a lifetime in each of these places. I don’t know if we will have authors in Heaven, which is why I should try to do it now. I know we will have Disney World. Sex slave is definitely questionable. At least the people part will be there, although I know the aspect of it will be greatly different. That too I can’t quite comprehend, so it makes me nervous as well.
It’s silly how sad I feel at times that I don’t get the option to fulfill these lives and how frantic it can make me when I feel like I need to squeeze so much more in. I guess my sense of mortality is intact. I must say, though, even though I can’t spend lifetimes at life’s smorgasbord, I have to be humbled at the world we have been given in which to reside. What a gift.