The sombre stuff

Having taken a swift look through the last year out there in the big wide world, it’s time to get a bit closer to home. It’s been an interesting year for me with quite a lot of highlights but also some real lowlights. I’ll start with some of the bad stuff and then we’ll move on to the more cheery stuff tomorrow.

Work has not always been the happiest of experiences this year. It was only after my head of unit retired that I realised quite how bullied I felt by her. I had seen how she treated other people and saw that as bullying but it was only once the weight had been lifted from my own shoulders that I saw quite what had been happening to me too. Work is such a huge part of a lot of people’s lives and so if it isn’t a good place to be then it has a big impact on you. Don’t get me wrong there have been some really good things at work and I work with some really great people but it was like walking into a cloud of darkness each week day morning for a large part of this year, not even being able to take my coat off or switch my computer on before being summoned over to my head of unit to talk to her about something. Anyway, it’s over now and whilst I am still trying to work out what my new head of unit is like there may be moves afoot to do with that in the New Year too. On top of that I am also changing jobs in the New Year which should make a whole range of things easier or at least different.

Relationships have not always been great in 2006. There was the stuff with A and that e-mail which basically seemed to pretty much say that we will never be in contact again. I still don’t give up hope that we might get back on to speaking terms one day and I won’t ever close the door on that, but the stuff a couple of months ago was a real low point for me this year. Then there were the couple of friendships that fell by the wayside more recently. The demise of one of the friendships has given me some reason to ponder and if I am honest, for reasons that I have not explained here, over the last couple of weeks I have been particularly down about that whole situation. Looking back over the year I have to say that my confidence in terms of friendship, and just in myself, has taken a real knock and more recently I have withdrawn quite a lot from situations because I think I just don’t quite trust myself at the moment. By which I mean I am so disappointed with, or maybe it’s ashamed of, myself that I feel at a loss as to know where to start in dealing with people. I will probably return to this next week sometime but, for now, suffice to say I have taken some severe knocks this year and it has caused me much self doubt.

Whilst my housing situation has improved much of late, there were times when I thought I would never escape my nosey and obsessive landlady. She invaded my privacy, tried to organise my life and went through my underwear with a regularity that I perhaps should have had her arrested for. Still I have now escaped and one day will be able to look back and laugh - with the laughter of the insane.