Self-awareness and companionship
What I Thought My Life Would Be
And the difference
This short enquiry is to establish what has brought me here.
I am mostly observant of people, and being the good girl I was taught to be, I am attentive to others’ feelings and wishes and to creating harmony. The sun was in Libra when I was born, so harmony is a factor in my way of being.
Four major relationships and their outcomes are part of the understanding I require from this exploration.
My nuclear family. My parents and sister, on the whole, accepted me. They did not understand me but made allowance that I was different. They did feel uncomfortable that I sensed and gave voice to their pain and hurt, so by curbing this knowing, I learnt to distrust myself. Sensitive, my mother called me.
She curtailed me in her parenting by vetoing certain activities and educational institutions. Her reason when I asked was that I would become a communist. In retrospect, this is amusing, and if I had this conversation with her, I would know what she thought that might be. At a guess, it probably means too liberal and actively supporting equality.
To break free from the continuing strife between my parents, I left home to study as far away as I could negotiate. My parents. Bless their silent generation hearts.
Husband number one. He laughed off, invalidated or dismissed my feelings. He, dear man, had learnt not to have any because his dad had joked, jeered and scoffed all his children out of their own. After ten years, I set off to connect with more of myself. It was my divorce.
A seven-year relatedness. Here I was wanted to be what I was not. I was required to agree most of the time, if not all: to accede to requirements, demands, way of life, goals, and views of people. I was required to be attentive way beyond what I could be.
Eventually, in response, I succumbed to hepatitis. My liver expressed its anger. After seven years, I was chronically unhappy and we parted ways. It was my need.
Husband number two. Our inability to find a middle way over fourteen years led to this unmaking, and not hearing my needs and requests when they opposed him. It was a long-term disagreement about his daughter. Then he built a case against me to validate his way over mine, making me wrong. It was his divorce.
I left our home and that city to start a new life over five and a half years. At first, I had the emotional support of two close friends. Then COVID-19 and lockdown put a spoke in my plans and establishing friendships and a wider community was delayed.
As the five and a half years progressed, it became clearer that spirit’s plan was different and that Brenda’s individuation, the inner journey required my full attention.
But, being solo was not how I thought my life would be. In each of my relationships, I thought together we would grow, gather years and fulfil our goals for a beautifully lived life.
Now I understand what it is to be attentive to myself, to enjoy the solitude, to know and feel that my company is the right companionship. To grow in wholeness and maintain my communities and friendships so that I am connected to heart and soul and to a pervasive joyousness.
When moment to moment I acknowledge whatever comes up and subsides is acceptance, and that that contributes to expansiveness.
That soul and Selves, higher and otherwise, are the ones closest to me, know me and love me best of all.
