So needing a holiday!

Really looking forward to our break away in Sydney this weekend. It has been such a long time since I’ve had a decent holiday... actually the last time away was my trip to Brisbane to meet the Scrap Pile girls and attend the Scrapbooking Expo. It was a blur of laughter and lots of walks. We had a sensational time but it was short and busy. I’m looking forward to some leisurely walks and a bit of sightseeing this time around and spending some real quality time away with Shane. Heaven knows we both need it right now. The weather looks promising and we’ve have the perfect opportunity to play around with the new camera. Fingers crossed there will be some memorable shots in there. I must admit that the opportunity to take some night shots with a good camera in Sydney, is something I am really looking forward to. But with any luck there might also be some photos of US - even with his eyes open!!!

I guess a big part of me needing this time away is due to my feelings of being so completely unsettled right now. There have been a number events over recent weeks that have challenged my faith in human nature and made me question where it is that I really fit in, both in work and also in the direction I would like my life to take. I am very grateful for the one solid foundation I have in Shane who is absolutely my rock and my soft place in life. That part of my life at least feels so right now which is reassuring. But at those times when his health is compromised, and my rock starts to crumble a little, and I think about where my life would be without him - it makes me realise just how nothing else in my life (aside from my family) actually measures up right now.

As much as I love my work, there have been incidents recently that make me question if I really belong. Although Shane often says it's one of the things he admires about me, my beliefs that;

people will be as genuine with you as you are with them,

good prevails over evil,

common sense will eventually play a large part in the final decision,

and that in the end people will recognise and respect the contribution you make,

seems to be causing me considerable grief recently. Maybe it's an "age" thing. Maybe I have just been naive all these years. I don't know. But it has occurred to me that over the past 5 or 6 years particularly, I have seen more incidents of disappointing human behaviour than ever before. It seems as though people can now just treat you as badly as they feel like, and there just isn't a thing you can do about it. It's like they pick a dumping ground for all the bitter, unhappy things that are happening in their own lives and you have absolutely no defence because their attack is illogical to begin with. And as much as I've always been a "people person" and felt the need to be in the company of others, my experiences over the last 5 or 6 years just make me want to withdraw from it all as I really don't like what I see.

And I guess what makes me feel even worse about the incidents that have particularly involved me personally is that often these have been people I have cared about and become friends with or at the very least respected, who I know have suffered emotionally with some traumas in their lives, and yet I become a dumping ground for their frustration when it suits. I really hate that being close to someone makes you a target for that. And I often wonder why people feel the need to hurt others just so they feel better about themselves. "Here - come down into the gutter with me - misery loves company". Or there is the other side that will just walk right over the top of you as if you don't exist - and all you can do is just shake your head and say WTF?

Finding a place where I feel like I belong, surrounded by people who are creative and interesting, who won't cut your throat because they feel threatened by you and who simply accept you for who you are and treat you with respect, and who will be as genuine with you as you are with them, feels increasingly more like a dream than a reality. And it makes me very sad to think that there will come a day in the not too distant future where I will give up that notion of seeing the good in people and just become cynical like others who have already arrived at the same conclusion..... It's like a little part of yourself dying, that last part of childhood innocence gone, and you know you'll never be able to get it back.