Moss and Mushrooms

In another lifetime

A chapter written from a (sort of) immortal person reflecting on his life before choosing death.
TW: Death, suicide, self harm mentioned, addiction undertones, nonspecific themes of abuse

On being me
I often wondered how I would answer questions about being angelic or unable to die of natural causes. I have milled over many collections of words that would explain my existence to you but the truth is I would never be able to capture this in the same way you could not do so yourself.
I asked you, "What is it like to be in your life, your body, yourself, what is it like to be you?" I have heard many variations of answers, many stories have been told to me, but if you answered honestly you would tell me that you don't know. How could you answer what it is like to live in your body if you've never lived anywhere else? How could you explain what it is like to be yourself if you've never been anyone else?
I would tell you the same story you would tell me, I could not explain what I have always known.
I see the ways in which you and I are feeling our skin up against each other and the failure of language when the right words do not exist.
I too like earthly pleasures like sweet coffee and ice cream. I too have an ache at the bottom of my stomach when I think about the thing I wish I knew then. I too have felt divinely connected and suffocatingly alone. I too like Sunday mornings and feeling the sun warming my skin.
I live in a different world, in another life does not mean the same thing to me as it does to you, eternity is not eternity in definite human beings.

Rules
I have never allowed myself to share that my birthday was hundreds of years ago.
In my second life this felt like a curse I was not capable of bearing, to know that never in my life will I be fully known by a human being, it crushed me into a fine powder, but after watching the pain of the dying and the pain amongst the living when another one of theirs is buried I realized that for a reason I will never know I am lucky.
I am not allowed to use my immortality as a way to hide from life, I cannot watch another funeral of mine unless it is timely, even if I could fake my death when I felt inclined to I would still have to live with the knowledge of the person I have been, I could run but I could not hide.
Although I have not always been good, I have always searched for it. I am to make the lives of the humans better in any way I can. The truth of what is good is endlessly changing but I am to seek it relentlessly.
I did not create the rules, I never learned them, I simply knew them from the beginning.

Three hundred and thirty seven
Growing up is different when there is no visible end, in each period I have lived many years as an age you would only be for one.
In my first life I was eleven for sixty two years. I had a childlike joy and curiosity, everything was exciting because I had never done it before, I made mistakes that one could have easily avoided. I lived in elation. I did not know what I did not know and I often tripped over my own feet.
I was sixteen for forty nine years, I embodied angst, I knew you could never understand, I looked for what I wanted in all the wrong places, I was abrasive and unkind. I left this life with many scars, all of which I gave myself.
I was twenty two for seventy three years, this was a life of trying and failing over and over again until I found whatever it was that I was looking for, I lived in elation or depression with no existing middle ground, I lived my life as an infinite number of people because I wanted to know what I was and what I wasn't.
I was thirty six for seventy six years, in that lifetime I lived for connection, I asked you hundreds of questions about yourself, I wanted to listen and be with you in a way I hadn't before. There are many people to love and many ways to show someone that you love them.
I have been fifty six for the entirety of this lifetime, all seventy seven years of it, the lifetime I believe will be my last. I feel that I have seen and been everything I am supposed to see and be.

Charlie
I got taller but I never grew up, stuck in an everlasting childhood.
If I hadn't tried this yet it would be added to a growing list of things I was to do, and I wanted to do everything.
I worked many jobs from chef of french fries to underpaid worker at a zoo to a librarian who never knew how to enjoy the quiet.
I had so much time and rushed through life blindly as if my life was finite, knowing it wasn't did not change this.
I was charming despite never knowing what to say, I was dedicated despite changing my mind every few months, I was home despite the never ending sense of being lost.
I loved being charlie.
I painted my clothes and wore them even if I looked a bit odd. I dyed my hair bright colors. I wore pink and blue shoelaces.
I purchased silly things without wondering how I would feel fifty years from now. I made big and small art projects, some of which I finished, some of which I did not. I drank soda and milk shakes that should not have been that unnatural shade of blue.
I felt adored and seen, I would not realize I was untainted because it was what I had always known. I didn't know myself but I felt as if I was becoming myself.
I was well liked for some strange reason, I was honest, sometimes painfully and sometimes playfully, I had many connections that taught me things but none of which felt deeper than a swimming pool.
I had an unshakable sense of curiosity and elation, there were hundreds of people to be and I had time to embody every one of them.