Accepting life on life’s terms

I am thinking of this saying today which is commonly heard in the rooms of AA. It is about recognising that often we have to accept certain realities that we do not like. We cannot change people to make them fit our idea of or wishes for them or us. We can only do our best to work for understanding of what life really is, accepting how other people are and making arrangements to be as close or as far as we feel the need to be.

I just met up with a very dear friend of mine and I love our chats. She is an Aquarian like me and we have a lot in common. We can talk about our families and sibling relationships, we are on a similar wavelength. We both recognise we are the ones in our families who do most of the reaching out. My friend has an older sister that was not very kind to her growing up but discussing it we recognise that having a sister born when you are only 18 months is not easy. And I know for my sister it was not easy having a sister born when she was 8 either. The dynamic of relationships changes with the birth of a new child and we can be in the same family but have very different relationships and interconnections with each of the members. I shared with Jane how this week I was struggling with expectations of my sister that I now see are unrealistic. I hope for things from her she could not understand if I did not express them and in any case I can leave it for her to come to me and not hear from her for weeks or make the effort to reach out.

In Al Anon meetings for adult children of emotional neglect, trauma or alcoholism there is another saying “Let it Begin With Me.” This does not mean I just push my own feelings aside and always try to be connected or reach out when it is not working but if my heart longs to connect and that connection is not coming then I do need to try while recognising I probably wont get all I hope for. And each relationship in our life brings something different to us.

At this end of the week I am trying to look at things from my sister’s perspective. She obviously does not feel the need to be in touch with me and I don’t know why. But I will call her, I think. I held off calling for a week now because I feel maybe I am separating emotionally from her. Dynamics do change with the death of a parent, especially a mother. I lost my other sister 5 years ago and she would often call me. I do miss that but part of accepting life on its own terms means accepting she is gone. And that is sad, but I have people like my friend Jane that I can connect to, so that is a blessing.

I guess we all see things from an egocentric perspective at times. I have a wound around longing for connection and being left alone a lot. I then took myself off or rebelled because often I was controlled and not understood when young. Necessary empathy was not shown at critical vulnerable junctures of my life. It really hurts to feel how much I missed out on, to acknowledge the reality and the way I had to respond and why I so often felt (and feel) unsafe in a hard world not always attuned to emotional realities, never held in mind in the way I needed to be. Only exiled. But that was then and this is now. I cannot change any of it, I can only understand it as best I can and pray for the peace to accept it as best I can. And this is what will grow self compassion which is really the starting reference point for developing compassion of others and acceptance of hard realities that we may often feel the need to deny, simply because facing them seems too painful.

I have a post backed up in drafts on denial that I assembled after reading another book on Everyday Narcissism which I will post after this. I guess I will be working on my narcissistic wounds and injuries and trying to find ways to soothe, make sense of, and accept them for the rest of my life. Things were tough for me but I know they were also tough for my sister. One of my favourite scenes in the movie 28 Days is the one where the older sister of the central character played by Sandra Bullock turns up to be part of the process of family therapy at rehab. She apologises to the younger sister who also apologises too knowing that the difficulties of having an alcoholic mother were equally shared by both but ended up manifesting in different ways.

I cannot expect my sister to make up for my mother’s absence, or my father’s death or even my older sister’s loss. I have to accept her on life’s terms and continue to work to both separate and connect. I do wish things were very different but they are not. And peace will only be found by accepting life on life’s terms.