Feeling lost

I feel very lost at the moment.  I'm struggling with feelings like having wasted my life, not getting anywhere, not knowing where I want to get , not caring (but deep down really caring so much I'm scared to let it all out).

I can talk about my plan to pay off my debt by the end of 2011, save for a few months and then go travelling/wwoofing for a year or two.  But at the same time I would really like to be settled somewhere.  To have found my 'home', the place where I can put down deep roots and stay.  I tend to put down roots wherever I go anyway, I've always been like that.  But I haven't yet found 'the place'.  And a very, very big part of me cannot get rid of the feeling that it's not actually the place, it's the people that will make that decision for me.  Or rather one person.  That special man who will complement and complete me and me him.  Lots of people say you can have a very full life on your own, you don't need a man to be fulfilled etc., etc. and I agree.  And that's the way I live my life.  I'm not sitting around just waiting for Mr. Right to turn up so that I can start living my life.  And I'm not dolling myself up every weekend and hitting the pubs and clubs desperately going through a long line of frogs in the hopes of turning up a prince.

But deep down in my heart and soul I do feel that I would be better as part of a couple.  I feel like I badly need to be loved and, perhaps even more so, need to love.  I need to have an outlet for all this love and passion that feels trapped inside me.  And no matter how much I love my family and friends or my hobbies/lifestyle, somehow that's a different kind of love and passion or perhaps it's just simply not enough of an outlet.  It's something of a paradox to not believe that everyone needs to have a special person in order to be whole while more and more coming to believe that I do.  Or maybe it's not.  Maybe that's just the most trite kind of thinking.  If there's one thing I'm good at it's sitting on the fence and trying to have all things all ways.

At the moment, I'm also questioning my reasons behind wanting to go travelling/wwoofing because I realise that a lot of it stems from the fact that I am not happy in work (changing jobs is not an option until my debt is paid as I am not likely to find a similar salary anywhere else).  And I wonder if I would feel more settled here or perhaps would allow myself to settle here more, if I liked going to work every day.  While I'm fairly certain I don't want to stay here forever, perhaps telling myself I'm going to move in the next couple of years is part of what is preventing me from feeling at home here. 

I don't actually have any point to any of this, no conclusions to draw.  Just have to start getting some of this out of my head.  We had a 'coaching' session in work on Friday - I work with two other secretaries in a so-called team.  Which is to say, I should be with one other secretary working for my boss but because of budget cuts that position wasn't re-filled and so the two secretaries across the hall had to take on part of 'my' work.  And one of them in particular is a very difficult person to deal with and also works very differently from me and makes no attempt to hide the fact that she finds me lacking in just about every way.  They complained about the "atmosphere" and so one of their bosses organised an external professional to come in and help us work on it.  It was a very intense session and really not much came out of it except that they have a very low opinion of me and, in my opinion, a fairly over-inflated view of themselves.  There was no practical aspect to it at all, such as coming up with ways to improve things although I was able to slip in a suggestion that we have a meeting once a week to catch everyone up on everything.  We're not supposd to talk about our communication or working together or any of it for the next four weeks (when we will have a follow-up session).  One thing it did make clear to me though is that although my boss and the rest of the team I work for are extremely challenging and difficult and just sometimes downright annoying people to work for, that's not actually what I hate the most.  It's the personality clash with this other woman which makes me not want to go to work every day.  My boss told me again on Friday that I am working too much and he is very nervous that I will work myself to a point of no return where I just give up and a few months later quit and nothing will change my mind (someone ratted me out and told him I was there last Sunday).  But what is clear to me now is that it's not the amount of work.  It's not even the fact that I don't get paid overtime anymore (officially I'm not supposed to do any at all).  I like working.  And if I go in on a weekend to get some stuff done in peace and quiet, they tend to be the kind of tasks I really like doing and it's fun because there's no pressure on.  But what does stress me out and would send me towards that point of 'I have to get out of here no matter what' is a bad atmosphere and unfriendliness and not being able to get on with someone.  We'll see how it goes over the next four weeks but I am hopeful that things are getting busy enough now that the budget cut decision from a year and a half ago will be reversed and I'll just get a second secretary working with me and not need to work with those other two at all. 

For now, I have a pile of cleaning and cooking to do and I brought a book back to the library yesterday and treated myself to a few silly films on DVD.  I have a couple of scented candles lit, the washing up and first general clean-up in the kitchen is done and now I'm going to lie on the couch, cover myself with a blanket and watch a film (I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and sitll have Burn After Reading, The Odd Couple, Pirates of the Carribbean 3 and Stealing Beauty on offer).