In a rut...

Being in a rut is never a good or fun thing.  Unfortunately I feel as if I'm in a rut in multiple aspects of my life so that seems to make the feelings of discontent compound.  It's difficult to go in and out of these different parts of my life, have a smile on my face day after day and I feel as if it's starting to weigh on me.  There are times where it is difficult to pretend that everything is okay and it's also becoming increasingly difficult to be the constant people pleaser.

One of the things I know that I need to do is stand up for myself, put my foot down and stop looking for someone else's permission/approval in order to do something for me.  It dawned on me today that I haven't been whale watching for almost a year (something that I absolutely LOVE to do) and I haven't been to the local aquarium for longer than that even though I'm paying for my annual membership.  Why haven't I done these things?  I've been putting the needs of others above what I want to do.

This upcoming week, I have a dentist appointment - I have already had to reschedule this appointment 3 times and people at work still wanted me to reschedule it since I'll have to leave work about 45 minutes early in order to make it to my appointment on time.  Why should I have to reschedule it?  I have employees who would request a whole day or at least half a day off for their own dental appointment but they're giving me a hard time over 45 minutes in a week where I'm already slated to have to put in extra hours...  This Friday, I have to work the parent's date night from 6 - 11 pm and I'm also slated to work Saturday for my Sports Coordinator who wants the day off (a full 8 hour shift); those hours are in addition to working 10 or more hours a day.  I need to learn how to day no and do what I need to do for me.  I'm not sure what that would look like since I don't tend to operate along those lines but I need to figure out something.

This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in the 2016 International Shimmy Mob - a flash mob of belly dancers who participate in their local communities all over the world who have learned the same choreography.  This year's choreography was okay (I liked it better than I liked last year's) but this year my group also learned the bonus choreography which was a lot of fun.  Not only was it set to fun/funky music, some of the moves were very different than things we do with the troupe I belong to.  Because I enjoyed the music, I ended up downloading the album and became drawn to the "club remix" of the song we danced to and I made the mistake of telling someone at the studio that - she sent me a message saying that she and two other dancers called "dibs" on the choreography and the music; I tried explaining to her that I didn't want to use the choreography but eventually might want to create my own solo to the music.  Drama ensued and I've been allowing it to bug me since - rather than just ignoring it and doing whatever I want since it's childish to call "dibs" on a public piece of music.  Oh, well; maybe one of these days I'll learn....

"Be true to who you are..."  This is something that I heard said by Tziporah (from Advanced Style) on a commercial; she has a fabulous sense of style and doesn't really care what other people may think about how she dresses.  Last weekend, I decided to have green and purple streaks put in my hair and someone at work asked me if I did it because I lost a bet; I did it because I wanted to.  It will wear out/fade in time and we'll see if I decide to color it again or not but for now, I'm enjoying it.  How I look at it is it's fun and it's only hair so big deal.

Well my dear readers, I should probably think about bringing this to a close since I just realized what time it is - it's after 11 pm here and while I'm not tired, I should probably try and get some sleep since I have a long work week ahead.  Thank you for joining me my dear readers and if you find yourself in a rut, I hope for you and me both that we can find our way out of our ruts soon...  Be you and let your freak flags fly!  =)