samsara

Why do things keep repeating themselves? Things which happened to me as a child seem to be happening again as an adult. I would like to isolate myself, my family from the world. I feel alien. Maybe I am an alien? Funny.

Bullies. That's what they are. Maybe I'm a bully too. Hard to say. I mean, I do enjoy an odd joke at certain people's expenses with my closest pals. I guess I'm no better than the very people who hurt me the most. Trust no one. Everyone is the same.

It kinda reminds me of reviewing a Simon and Garfunkel song in Grade 9. "A rock feels no pain, an island never cries. I touch no one and no one touches me." I am trying so hard to not let this happen.

I have hardened over the years. I do mourn the loss of my "old" self. I was always very shy, maybe for good reasons. I was a sensitive girl, I always thought of others before myself. Everyone thought I was sweet and kind. Lots of people made fun of me. I feel helpless when I see the same kind of thing happen to my girls. I cannot believe that my girls have to endure the same kind of pain which I went through.

I also cannot believe that I as an adult still have to put up with the redicule & torture of bullying from women(and men) my own age. One of the strange things is that many of my previous bullies from my childhood , happen to live in my neighbourhood with their kids. Our children now attend the same school. These bullies tell my horrid detailed past to new faces who eventually join in on the fun of the bullying. I try to be a role model to my kids and show them how to deal with this situation, but in the end I still have difficulty standing up to them.

Recently I have been bullied on cyberspace. It's just one woman. She is a parent at our school. We are both on the parent council. I cannot remember a time where I have treated her poorly. For some reason she attacks me on facebook every chance that she gets. I am afraid to delete her for fear that it will cause more drama. I cannot believe that I feel so paralized on my own facebook profile. I fear that she waits on my next status update like her next meal.

OK, so maybe I'm obsessing just a tad about all of this. I just wonder what she's teaching her kids by acting this way. Then again, what am I teaching mine by not reacting appropriately and putting a stop to this once and for all.

Earthquake in Ontario?

We just had a scary earth tremor. We've had smaller ones here before, but not like this. It just shook the whole house for at least 2 minutes. My brother felt it and he is an hour away from us. I hope that there isn't some new fault line in Ontario. Wierd!

Blog, Blog, Blog

I have so much to blog, the question is where to start? I think the real reason I decided to start this blog was that I need an outlet to vent. I was periodically venting on my facebook page which (as I found out) can be quite embarassing and dangerous. Not that I have anything against facebook. I'll be the first to admit to my addiction and hours upon hours of my time needlessly scouring pages of lost friends and loved ones(and ones I loved and didn't know that I existed).

I think that my panic really set in last night. I logged on to facebook and checked my newsfeed like I always do. A few weeks ago, I had found out that a teacher at my kids' school happened to be friends with one of my friends. Well that was the beginning of a terrible addiction for me. The teacher had left her privacy settings WIDE open. I could read her wall, see her birthday(which she happens to share with me), see the answers she got wrong on the family feud games, pictures of her kid etc and posts from friends (fellow teachers at our school). I was a little shocked that a "Teacher" would be so careless about so much personal information. My privacy settings are set up to the max with only my friends viewing things. I've even considered going through my friends individually and deciding as to whether they are "worthy" enough to see my status updates, photos, friends etc. This teacher for some reason intrigued me. I started following her posts and eventually noticed that she was commenting on things which happened at our school. She would joke that none of the students in her class were very bright and fellow teachers would complain about their students calling them smelly and lazy. This was a new addiction for me. I would check her page at least a couple of times a week.
I must admit that it did make me feel uncomfortable when I would see this teacher at school interacting with her students. It gave me insight as to what kind of a person she really is and how she really feels about the kids that she teaches. A few times I wished that I could tell her how I felt about her commenting on how she felt that the students at our school wouldn't become future leaders of our country. It bothered me to know that she dreaded meeting the parents on open house night. It really made me upset to know that 3 or 4 other teachers were joking online about personal happenings of the students for everyone to see.
I guess the right thing to do would've been to maybe approach her and mention that she must have by mistake left her privacy settings open. Maybe I should've approached the principal on the issue. Better than that, maybe I should've stopped looking weeks ago.
Last night I searched her name and like clockwork her page appeared and I read her daily happenings. I decided to check back a little later and when I did............it was gone. She finally set her privacy to max. Now I'm left to wonder, did she find me out? Is there some new facebook application which tells her who viewed her page and how many times. She might think that I'm a stalker(I'm not sure that I'm not).
When I logged on today, I discovered that I can see her page again. What happened? Is she testing me?
I can't take it anymore. I blocked her.

Welcome to my Galaxy

Hello out there in cyberspace! I've decided to create this blog to share with everyone the trials, tribulations and triumphs of my world. I hope that readers will get a sense of who "Grace" is, was, would like to be and maybe "Grace" will find a sense of who she is through her writings as well. I can't promise that the blog will be enlightening or even entertaining. I guess I'll let the readers take what they want from it as we travel through life together. Bon Voyage!