A mirror of expectations

Who am I, this seeker of soul? 

My given name, Miranda, means ‘worthy of admiration’ and I have no idea why my parents gave it to me.  I suspect they didn’t know of its meaning as a sense of being ‘worthy of admiration’ was certainly not reflected in my childhood, or much of my adult life.

Photo by Rishabh Dharmani on Unsplash

My parents were damaged souls, as so many of their generation were, and still are.  My mother’s life was overshadowed by the loss and unheard grief of a motherless child, and my father’s by the unspoken trauma of a young, reflective man in a brutal war.

My mother arrived in my father’s life like a light in his post-war traumatised soul.  Apparently full of energy and colour, her soul was full of angry rebellion while his was full of curiosity and a need to question.  He would tell me how he and his brother would debate a topic until midnight and then change sides – my own scribblings and musings often feel like those shifting debates!  

They were two lonely and confused souls, both looking for love and security but, in the end, unable to find it in each other. 

So my given name seems an ironic choice. Maybe my parents subconsciously hoped that their first-born would redeem their sense of not being good enough, would indeed be ‘worthy of admiration’. 

Who knows, but the weight of expectations and a confused loneliness, as well as that of rebellion and curiosity, were a legacy that left me full of questions about the lives of others and led to a lifelong journey to find my ‘I’, my own authentic soul.

That journey began in my late teens when I spent time in Africa and found freedom in a new culture and in the wilderness.  In my twenties I lived in Paris amongst musicians and artists and found freedom in creativity and independence. 

 In these times I glimpsed that authentic ‘I’, that sense of freedom and autonomy, of truly being myself but expectations and the fear of losing any security I had found, drew me back into the conformity of marriage and motherhood, closing the gates of freedom behind me.

I remember as my first-born lay beside me, saying to myself ‘this is the first person who will truly love me just as I am.’ I knew it felt wrong, that sense of being a mirror of other’s expectations and demands, but I just couldn’t see a way out, whichever way I turned. 

I think that is why, in the end, I became a psychotherapist, listening to unheard, confused children and young adults so they could find their unique sense of who they are.  That is why I left home and family to live in a community of street children in Mongolia to try and heal their abandoned and traumatised souls.  It was in Mongolia that I finally found my soul and my voice.

And that is why now, as a writer, I reach out to other unheard and isolated seekers of soul, to free their authentic voices in a world in which so many from every origin, context and culture feel lonely and unheard. 

Expectations, expectations… the word flows through my story.  Expectations inherited from generations before me, from my class, culture and society, from the labels and roles I have been given – and accepted.  Many of these, wife, mother, colleague, friend, have brought happiness, but it is only when I have cast aside any expectations that I have found freedom and my own unique ‘I’.  An ‘I’ who is passionate for a world where every unique soul will be heard and will feel ‘worthy of admiration.’

I wonder if your ‘given’ name reflects your sense of who you are?  What legacy resonates in your own writing?