{ Laying down the cards }

Dear all of you who take time to read this,

As you may have noticed I haven't been as active on the blog as I used to. Most of all there is a lack of outfit posts nowadays. Well there is actually a reason for this.

When I began blogging it was meant to be an online space to drop my creativity with the main focuss point on fashion and personal style. I have never had the intention to share my personal live online. However I feel that I should make an exception this time and I also feel that I owe some kind of explanation to you guys for this change in blogging quality and quantity.

I feel very fortunate that there are so many of you who share the same interest and who read my blog or either scroll through the pictures, for some daily inspiration when we dress ourselves or go out shopping. Many of you have been true followers for a long period of time and always take time to leave me a lovely comment after each post.
For me that is the evidence that blogging is not only a one way direction and a monologue of sending all kind of words and pictures into the world wide web. But it's a dialogue between people with the same interest, no matter the distance and places we live. I feel blessed to be able to not only experience this but also to be a part of it. This gives me a lot of positive energy! I always liked to interact with people and learn from different cultures. That was one of the reasons that I liked travelling and wanted a job as a flight attendant to achieve that.

Working as a flight attendant is a great job, it really is. However if you do not take care of yourself properly and set boundaries and listen to the signals your body sends you, it can result in a less postive situation.
That I had to encounter myself recently. Already for a long period of time (month's) I was feeling tired and kind of exhausted and used to whimp it off, neglect those feelings and just keep on going with whatever goals I had set for myself. Because that was the story of my life; I had a million things I wanted to do and not nearly enough time to even acomplish a part of that. Like most of us, time flies and we feel that we need 48 hours a day instead of 24 hours to come close to do the thinks we want and need ánd get enough rest at night. That is the kind of world we are living in nowadays. And the great wonders of internet and social media haven't made it easier to unwind and stay away from all that.

I was always looking forward, either to the next days off or to a vacation or holiday. This past summer it was looking forward to september, when my boyfriend and I took a two week vacation trip to Turkey. Because there I would rest, unwind (lack of internet connection) and reload my batteries and all would be fine. I did, I spent a lot of time sleeping either in bed or at the poolside (that way I could work on my tan as well; who said multitasking isn't great). The rest of the day we just spent a lot of quality time together and had a fab time! Finally I felt physically more relaxed and rested.

But back from our vacation trip we dropped back into our daily routines and work. Usually I had a diverse working/travel schedule, some times short trips with less days off that would alternate with trips with more days off, that way I had a balance and that was working for me. However due to lack off personal qualified for Airbus related flight, the ones that had the qualifications for this aircraft type ended flying only these flights, that meant busy and short flights and too little time off to truly rest.

Besides that I want to do a lot in the spare time I have. Mostly things any other person would that spends 7 days a week home (instead of travelling) but also run the blog and make it succesfull, have a proper social life, cocoon at home with my boyfriend and watch movies and hold tv-show marathons. Be the perfect home-cook, have everything perfect and tidy. Go work-out at the gym every possible day I'm home to achieve a fraction of the body of a Victoria Secret model. Always look fab with blow-dried hair, spend time reading my favourite magazines. Surf the web and read all the blogs I like and from the people that follow me and I follow back, leave comments on all those blogposts, because you know how much you like it when someone leaves a comment on yours. Go learn a new foreign language or take that photography course, go to sewing lessons etc. ect.

The workload I experienced these past months since the end of the september together with all the rediculous goals I always set myself led to the fact that when I got ill at the end of november with gastroenteristis (Litteraly translates to stomach flu in Dutch) I had to call in sick and recover.
When I arrived at the doctor and explained my situation she said that the gastroenteritis wasn't anything to worry about, that would pass, but the more worrying part was that she diagnosed the beginning of a burn-out. That was the cause of my total exhaustion. She said I was lucky this was the begin phase because the recovery period would take less time then when you had an actual burn-out.

As you can imagine, this was a rough pill to take in. Yes I was tired, but could'nt I just sleep it off in two weeks? How could this be, I mean there are people who live in for more stressfull situations, am I maybe making this up? I am only 28, isn't that too young to get near a burn-out? A lot of questions rose to my mind. In the end after some time I realised this was a wake-up call to try and change my behaviour, set boundaries and listen to my body, instead of ingnoring the signals and just keep going. The hardest part was to realise that it is impossible to live by such high personal standards and that I had to loosen up a bit and not try to chase perfection.
When you set yourself the goal to excersize 5 times a week, and you just reached 3 or 4 times, you will feel dissapointed, even though it is great you went all these times. Instead of being proud that you went 3 or 4 times, we punish ourselves (not litteraly) for not having been able to go five times. While when we set the goal to go two times a week. We will be happy when we go twice, and even more when we have time to go a third or fourth time! This is just a silly example but works with any goal we set ourselves.

Another thing is trying to live up to other people's expectations. Most of the times those expectations are set by ourselves, no one told us we had to do that. So it's like chasing a ghost. I always felt that whenever I read blogposts from my followers I had to leave a comment, but imagine if you read hundreds of post daily, how many comments those would be, for me besides working it is almost impossible to achieve. That made me feel guilty, which is silly. So for those out there whom I follow, I do read your posts, just know that I don't always leave a comment, even though I wish I could.


Well this all said, I hope thise gives a bit more perspective of the person and situation behind the blog Lolita in the Mix. Thank you for taking the time to read this and to get to know me a bit better, I hope I didn't bore you to much!
As for now, I am taking things slow and try to recover, pick up daily life routines and focussing on improving the blog for when I back and healthy! I hope you will follow me along.

Have a great day!

-xoxo- Lorena