A Single Shade of Grey – The best times are over?

It is not easy. It has never been. But this year came with so many bad surprises that I can hardly believe it really happened. I am grateful that those did not affect my personal life too much although I felt kind of involved in everything. I learned to distance myself from the bad news and it helped a great deal.

Of course I am not really a princess and I don’t even dream of it anymore. My visions and goals have changed so much over the past year. Emotionally I am not back where I used to be. But it does not help to live in the past.

I like to think that the past as we see it is shaped by our emotions. Bad memories and the day to day struggle fade and we see only the outstanding moments and the good times that are gone now. In our perception the past can be many things. I wish I could use it as inspiration.

But I am so afraid that my best times are already over. This is a real fear! I was so high and I fell so deep. How can I climb this mountain again? I was flying. I spread my wings fearlessly and jumped. The flight was short but very intense and I still nurture from it.

So many things hold me back from flying again. Rational thoughts mostly. I know it was not sustainable. But I loved the intensity of it and I hate the greyness of my life as it is now. I had so many feelings that got numbed. I had so many problems. Now I have just one.

It is time to bring the color back into my life. I don’t know how to do it. I will have to let go of many things. Of security and safety. Maybe the people close to me will not like this step. Like so many of my steps. But if I keep crawling I will never reach the heights that I was born to see. Maybe I will struggle many days and who knows if it will be worth it?

The only constant is change.

That has become a motto for me. It quietly slipped into my life and turned up again and again. I really enjoy an emotional roller coaster. More than a real roller coaster for sure. It makes me feel alive and I need this feeling back. I don’t want to be dying from inside.

But these both extremes can’t be the only options. I don’t know how many shades of grey exist but I am pretty confident that the number of colors is infinite. I can choose one tomorrow and another one the day after. I don’t have to stick with one version.

My favorite color is blue. But I also like orange and red and brown and so many other colors. Why do I feel like I have to choose one? There are many fish in the sea. And even more plastic. We have so many options and we drown between them sticking to what we know. After all we are just tiny little ants.

For me this thought is liberating. If it doesn’t matter what I do, I can choose what I want and what I love. That’s the theory. The practical application is much more difficult. But I choose to be gentle with me and go one step after the other.

I don’t want to be the best version of myself. Who defines what is a good version of me anyways? I don’t want to compare myself not even with myself. Because this brings me back to the good old days where everything was better and I know that I cannot go there.

I have to look forward, pull myself together and be brave again. Ups and downs come and go, what was important once will be irrelevant soon. Still the thought of decay is haunting me as well as the version that I used to be. I was so innocent. I was so full of it. I was naive and in good faith. Confident and bold.

How can I make peace with this best version of myself?

Today’s limits are tomorrow’s comfort zone

I am a person who has great problems with setting boundaries. I never know where my limits are. I only find out when it’s too late.

It is easy for me to put my feelings back and ignore them until a certain point. But then it becomes quite problematic.

Tonight I had a dream that I was in the hospital because I kept having black-outs, phases, in which I had no memory. It was frightening! I really wonder what this dream was trying to tell me.

I once said “Today’s limits are tomorrows comfort zone.” and by the time I said it I definitely meant it. I was looking at exercise for example. If you keep on training the moves that are your challenge now, they will one day become your warm up. But I guess you shouldn’t use this saying for mental wellbeing or other personal areas. There might be a certain place of comfort that we should never leave. Too much stress can be really harmful.

I like my comfort zone. Like we all do. And after all the failures of the past I am really shy to leave it. It has also become immensly difficult.

It is always easier for me when other people push me out of this zone. But this has great dangers to it as they might go too far since I am unable to set my boundaries in a proper way. So I keep struggeling. As usual.

When life has other plans

I really want to return to a more artistic life, but it is not so easy. It was probably naive of me to think that I just need to announce that I am starting a new life and everything will fall into place. Spoiler: It didn’t. I am still struggling. I am still fighting. But at least I know that I am in the right place doing the right things.

What is going well?

I did a little demo video with a percussionist. In the future we want to collaborate, rehearse and make more videos. We just need to find a good location for it.

I had a show last week. It was my first show in years and it went well. Now I need to edit the videos and upload them.

I am posting regularly on Instagram on my Bellydance account as well as on my lifestyle account.

What is going not so well?

I was not yet able to edit the new videos and upload them. I just don’t find the time to do it. I hope that this weekend will give me an opportunity to work on this.

I am not playing the guitar. I barely find the time and I am also afraid to do it. It is very frustrating because I don’t even know the basics yet. Everything sounds horrible and I make many mistakes.

What is the plan?

As you can see from my summary, I am mostly returning to my old life as a belly dancer even though I wanted to leave it behind. But I also don’t want to waste 15 years of training and expertise. So I keep going even though I don’t know where this path will lead me.

But I really need to get the new life started! I want to play the guitar, sing and make music. Unfortunately I am heavily struggeling with this.

Eventually I will get there. And in the end it will not matter if it took me three month or a year to achieve my goal. So I have still hope.

I want to do this and I will do it.

The short term plan is to keep posting old stuff, edit all the videos, create new material and learn playing the guitar.

Will you join me on this journey?