life erratic.

so on tuesday i started the morning with the usual...not wanting to get up, finally getting up, showering, and only after walking through my apartment several times – barefoot – and putting my contact lenses in did i realize that there were maggots on the floor. yes, i know what you will think of me now. in my defense i will say that while i struggle daily to get out of bed at a reasonable hour the maggot thing, while it has happened before, doesn't happen daily, thank god. though if you saw me how calmly i destroyed every single one of them without doom and without any vomiting, you’d think it is a regular occurrence. i promise you it isn’t. while my flat is never that spick and span that i would offer you my floors to eat from, it isn’t thaaat bad either.

i did work up quite a sweat though which didn't help the make-up on my face situation so i ended up at work late, hair uncombed, and face bare. oh well. how was your morning?

i spent the next few hours pondering what the maggot situation meant – was it hotter outside than i realized? did i throw out meat and just forgot about it? did the maggots come from space? was i just a slop? should i be able with 35 to offer my guests floors so clean they could eat off them if they wanted to?

obviously i am now convinced that maggots are just another form of evil aliens.

last week i was talking to a client of ours about my pending move and was proudly telling him how good it felt to get rid of so much stuff and the realization that i really don't need lots. that same evening i received the first quote from a removal company and it brought tears to my eyes. i looked at my, what i already thought tiny pile of things i wanted to ship, and had to reevaluate here and now just how little i was really attached and weed through this tiny pile again to make it even tinier.

how am i supposed to live without my two white plastic animals?

or without my three champagne glasses, sole survivors of many beautiful dinner parties?
or my falling bird picture that julia and nele gave me a few years ago for my birthday and that i once dripped body lotion on which didn’t matter because it looks like a bird feather?

some stuff just is important...

luckily natalie gave me another shipping company's name and they are much much cheaper, but cannot ship furniture. alas, my beautiful chair needs to stay. at this point i had already said my goodbyes and didn't care all that much anymore.

so when i got to the office on tuesday and after deciding that maggots are evil aliens, i called the shipping company, ordered boxes, and paid a deposit. only to get a better quote from another company literally 5 minutes later which could ship everything including my chair, because who are we kidding – i love that chair! i immediately cancelled the first order of boxes only to change it all back after some more 'careful' consideration another 10 minutes later. maybe i didn't need to bring my chair after all. or maybe the chair could travel on its own with the one company while the boxes went with someone else?
when i got home i first made sure that the floor was now maggot free and decided to put things in piles. then i took my pictures down, only to put them up again a minute later, because really the boxes would only arrive on thursday and why live with bare walls any longer than strictly necessary?

see where i'm going with this? my life is a bit erratic right now and while i apparently have no problem making decisions, i can’t stick to any it seems.

the boxes arrived including bubble wrap, marker, tape, and packing list. you can imagine how excited an organized control freak like me gets if a company not only delivers boxes to you, but gives you all the other stuff you need to pack them too?! and before you ask, no, this is not a sponsored post…

so i started to pack while watching old bachelor reruns and drinking wine. pictures were taken off the wall, my pizza spade taken apart to fit into my suitcase, and glasses bubble wrapped and taped so well, i threw them around the room a bit and they wouldn’t break.  all in all a normal evening. till i ran out of wine and decided to move on to drinking malibu on ice. which in my defense i would have never thought of if it wasn’t for natalie who deemed it a good enough pre-dinner cocktail a few nights prior when i had nothing else to offer.
so while i think i cannot be blamed for all weird things i do, i took this as a sure sign that it is time for me to move and to finally get my life back on track. just remember that next time you find yourself alone, drinking malibu on ice – as sweet as it tastes, it ain’t a good thing.

about leaving, yoga, and a slimy toe.

 

i just squirted liquid soap that someone had made more liquid by adding water all over me and my left big toe. i tried to rub the soap off, but ended up washing my toe and my flip flop in the process. i don’t think i have done a very good job with getting the soap off because both toe and flip flop still feel very slimy. slimy in a good way of course, because it is soapy slime, but still… also it has now spread from my toe to the rest of my foot so it’s sliding around on/in the flip flop.

anyhow what is going on in your life?

other than having a too clean toe right now life has been really good lately. ever since the big news is out of the bag – can i still say this even though it's not a cat? - i have a newfound excitement for everything. an excitement for life, the future, myself. i’m feeling very bubbly on the inside. i am even doing vinyasa classes, if you believe it, these days. if you know me, you understand that this is a big deal. i do bikram and in bikram you stand still, which i like and which i am quite good at most days. that sounds more dreadful now than it is, because i firmly believe that people need to stand still more often and just be and breathe. in my case however i feel like i now need to literally go with that flow i have found and move and jump around and do. the thinking is done, now it is all about doing and it feels really, really good to get moving, on and off my yoga mat.

last night i had a dream of how i was back in hamburg and my brother told me that he was moving to new york for work. i can’t tell you how upset i was about this and i had to try my hardest to put on a brave face for him and be supportive of his decision. when i woke up and realized it was only a dream i was very, very relieved. part of the excitement of moving to hamburg is that i will be closer to my brother and my nephew. at the same time it really gave me an appreciation of how the people here, who love and cherish me, must feel that i am moving away. i never really thought much about that before to be honest. i was always the one moving countries, even continents, leaving it all behind when only the idea of staying became harder than the idea of leaving. but leaving was still always hard and it will be again. but with that in mind i never really thought about the people that i am leaving behind and that, without tooting my own horn, it might be really hard for them too.

till i had this dream and i was in the reverse position.

as it is i am unashamed selfishly glad that my brother is staying put for the time being. and i am so grateful for people that love me enough that they will miss me. i will miss you too! when the subject comes up with my boss or thekla and they both look at me with puss in boots eyes, i already almost cry. so no, actually i take it back; being the one that is leaving makes it double as hard.

but as i still smile while i’m writing this, i know i have made the right decision and that feeling makes it all alright. well, sort of…

 

the news.

i’m telling you my news today. you may or may not care and that is entirely up to you, but i am quite excited.

i told my uncle last night and he was sort of the last hurdle beloved that i had to tell in person before putting it in writing. if i haven’t told you in person, please don’t be upset with me, it doesn’t mean that i don’t love you, it simply means that i am less scared of you than i am of my uncle. i was very scared he would yell at me. or even worse not speak to me at all. so before i started telling him, i made him promise.

me: promise that regardless of what i tell you now that you will not not speak to me anymore.
uncle: who are you marrying?
uncle: are you marrying insert name of hated ex-boyfriend here?
me: noooo!
uncle: okay, then i promise.

here is the big news: i am moving to hamburg next year.

eeek.

there i said it. i wrote it. it’s on the internet. which is the 21st century version of putting something in stone, isn’t it?

you ask why? of course you do. here you go:

faq as to why annika is leaving beautiful, sunny cape town and moving to hamburg which is known more for its fish rolls and drizzling rain. (not that there is anything wrong with fish rolls!)

q: when did you make this decision?
a: three and a half weeks ago after a sunday afternoon nap dream about hamburg.

q: is that when you make your important decisions? after a nap?
a: the value of naps is completely underrated. i believe in their powers and make most of my important decisions either during nap time or when i’m in the shower. restaurants should come with beds or showers, because it takes me forever to decide what i want to order.

q: but don’t you like cape town?
a: i love cape town! but sometimes love is not enough.

q: didn’t you always say that cape town was your home?
a: i did say that, but in the end it actually isn’t my home. i can’t even say drol in die drinkwater properly and i don’t like rugby. i also got into an argument once with an ex when he wanted to buy a small braai and put it on my balcony. i thought that was silly as i have a perfectly fine stove and good frying pans.

q: during your last christmas holiday in germany you were not only sick, but also depressed – how will you manage?
a: that’s why i’m planning to move in summer, so i can ease into it. also i will tell my dad to make something else than oily beans for christmas lunch so i won’t get sick again.

q: still…why are you moving?
a: besides the nap dream? i read this lovely story from natasha. she had just gotten robbed in her sleep and could still find such comfort in the fact that she is south african and how she loves her country, her home. i thought that was beautiful, but i realized when it comes to south africa i can’t relate.

q: have you tried?
a: yes, i have tried a lot. for six years in fact. but it has been hard, so now i want to live in a place where maybe relating for me is a bit easier.

q: what are you going to do in germany?
a: besides dancing a whole night on the reeperbahn and eating a fish roll for breakfast? okay, in no order of importance:
play uno with my nephew.
have my brother cook me dinner.
meet marie’s baby girl.
play with marie’s baby girl.
fly to paris for a weekend to eat all the macarons at ladurée.
bring back more macarons to eat with julia.
actually, scratch that.
i’d fly to paris with julia and eat all the macarons at ladurée together.
eat joey’s pizza and paint my nails red with xenia.
do bikram yoga every day.
be home for my dad’s birthday and finally clean up the attic.
have carnival in cologne again.
get an awesome job. or work freelance. or start my own business. just because i can.
drink rhubarb juice. with the good aldi champagne.
have my mum make me the original poor man’s meal.
finally fly with ryanair. to barcelona and rome and morocco and london (ash!!!).
shop at cos. and buy some prada shoes.

the list could go on and on.

q: but won’t you miss cape town?
a: i will miss cape town terribly. and if i were to put together a list of things i love and like doing here it would be just as long.

q: then why do you go?
a: you have asked that before. i am simply a bit stuck here. i need a new adventure.

q: i don’t like it.
a: that’s not a question and you don’t have to like it. everybody who is important to me likes it or at least understands and supports my decision.

guys, if you think this was a weird post you are probably right and i apologize. i can’t really put it all into one coherent string of thoughts yet, at least not in writing. as i have mentioned before my head is swimming these days with the magnitude of my decision and how i will make it all happen and how much i will miss cape town and the questions of am i freaking crazy? and should i take my pizza shovel with? go around in my head. so that is why this post is what it is and the answers to those last questions are probably yes and yes. i will leave as such for now.