"nie moj cyrk, nie moje malpy"

If you can't read this week's post title, don't worry; I can't either because it's in Polish.  You might be asking, "How does it translate?"  Simply, "nie moj cyrk, nie moje malpy" translates, "not my circus, not my monkeys" - basically, "not my problem."  To some, that may seem harsh but for my own sanity (or for what little sanity I have left) I need to make this my mantra.  I need to focus on my own monkeys and stop collecting the monkeys of other people and take care of theirs while ignoring my own.  Because I've been collecting a troop of monkeys, I've unfortunately neglected the circus that is my life and that has allowed the lights to go out and the popcorn to go stale...

I have been back at work for a week and I have already found myself slipping into some old, bad habits.  Rather than delegating tasks, I've been taking them on myself and the feelings of being on vacation have mostly faded away already.  I wrote last week about creating a schedule for myself at work so I don't have it take over my entire life.  I haven't taken the opportunity to create a schedule however rather than trying to overdue it daily by working almost 12 hour days, I did cut back to 10 hours a day so that's a start...

One of the things I am going to do this week is to start prioritizing my monkeys and get my life circus operational again.  Because I have already found myself slipping into old habits, I have in turn found myself stressing after being back at work for only five days.  I knew that things were going to be hectic coming back after my extended vacation but I didn't have to allow myself to obsess over work (even at home) and take things to such a personal level.  I really need to learn how to leave work in my office at the end of the day and know that it will still be there the next day rather than over analyzing everything while I'm at home.

The last two nights I have found myself going to bed late (between 12:30 and 1 am), sleeping for about 30 minutes and then being wide awake for 1.5 - 2 hours.  I have a feeling some of this is due from not totally switching off after work.  I found myself reading in the middle of the night but I know that I will have to reread some of what I read because my mind kept wandering.  Maybe I need to pick up a hobby that I can do in the middle of the night where my mind can think through things but I can have my hands on autopilot (like knitting or crochet or something).  Granted it might be better for my sleep if I clubbed myself before going to bed but that would probably present other issues long term...  I am hoping that if I get to the point where I can embrace "nie moj cyrk, nie moje malpy" ("not my circus, not my monkeys") that I will be able to sleep through the night.

One way that I did impress myself this past week is every day I wore outfits to work where I was able to embrace my muchness.  I actually had several coworkers and quite a few parents comment on my "new" look.  When I commented that I used to dress like that all the time, some of them said that they did remember that but others didn't.  I was glad to hear that some of them remembered that I used to dress that way daily and it did sadden me that some people didn't either know about it or they didn't remember.  I will just have to do my best in my upcoming work week.

Speaking of upcoming work week, I should probably think about bringing this to a close for the evening and prepare myself for the week ahead.  I know that I have at least one long work day - I will be instructing a First Aid/CPR class on Tuesday - and then dance class starts back up this week in preparation for a big show we just found out about today.  I will let you know next week if I've been able to get the lights back on and fresh popcorn popped for my circus and get the monkey situation under control.  I wish you the best of luck wrangling your own monkeys this week my dear readers!  =)