Life in Slow Mo

As the saying goes in Marc-Uwe Kling's Kangaroo Chronicles:

"There are some and such - and then there are a few others, but those are the worst". In terms of timing at work, I definitely fall into the latter category. This quality came in very handy when I was watching TV, because the ability to always do things at the last minute can definitely be helpful when you're working in a job that is characterized by great time pressure and "last minute" changes . With style definery, on the other hand, I would often be well served if I could organize my time management a little better. This applies to two areas in particular: my annual accounts and my column. I actually know exactly when I have to be finished at the latest in order to be able to publish both on time. And yet I always start much too late and then get completely slacked off, as you can see from the current column, because nothing was ready for the first coffee yesterday morning. It wasn't due to a lack of topics, quite the opposite. But instead of writing, I treated myself to a really long and useless day at the beach on Sunday, because I'm currently in Andalusia, where I spend part of my summer every year. The sun was shining, the sea was murmuring, there was a light breeze and there were cold drinks because it was my birthday recently and I still had a bottle left over from the celebrations. Before I knew it, the sun was setting and it was time to go home, cook a little supper for my kids there, play a few rounds of City Country River, and then go to bed and do some serious stuff to sleep in Of course, the whole time I had the thought in the back of my mind that I still urgently needed to write my column, but at some point I thought to myself: "What the hell?" I'm always so energized and of course I work a little every day even on vacation, which is why so don't even let it go and celebrate the state that I very rarely get: maximum relaxation.

I'm not a security freak at all and I love adventure, but I still need rituals and reliability in order to be able to let go and thus achieve a certain state of relaxation. This doesn't just refer to holidays, but affects many areas of my life. I would never go on a first date or an interview in a new dress, but always in clothes that I feel comfortable in because they are familiar to me and simply fit well. I like to experiment in restaurants, but when I'm looking for a relaxing evening, I prefer to order something that I know for sure I'll enjoy.

I love discovering new things and places in my life, but I never get bored of going over and over to Andalusia, where I know every grain of sand on the beach and where the menu of my favorite restaurant hasn't changed for 15 years. When my children were little, we used to spend most of our summer holidays on the Germans' favorite island. Not on Mallorca, but on the other, on Sylt. It is in the nature of things that holidays with small children per se do not promise great recreational value, but Sylt stressed me in a very special way, because here the weather factor came into play. Every morning my first look was at the sky and the hope that it would not rain and get warmer than 16 degrees Celsius. Drizzle and autumnal temperatures undoubtedly have their appeal, but not during the summer holidays. Of course there are many wonderful days and weeks on the north German coasts, but the uncertainty factor made sure that I never really relaxed.

It's very different here - so different that on Friday night I almost left the house topless. Not in the actual sense, but without a root spray. I was invited to dinner and was about to leave when my daughter called after me:  "Mom, you still have dry shampoo on your head". This was a somewhat confusing statement, since I had washed my hair half an hour earlier, albeit in the classic way with real shampoo in the shower. It took me a moment to realize there had been a mix-up and the light patches on my head weren't the remnants of bad hair day salvation, they were my approach. God gave me brunette hair once, but everything that grows back has now inexorably given way to another shade. While it's now extremely popular among influencers around the world to let nature run wild and grow out your roots, I still don't feel ready for 50 Shades of Grey, at least not on my head. So it was all the more surprising that I wanted to leave the house like that. But then it dawned on me that I had apparently slipped completely unnoticed into a new state of consciousness, namely that of life in slo-mo mode, in which (almost) everything somehow doesn't matter and it's just about being with yourself and the here and enjoy now. I'm so chilled now that I'm even three weeks late reading the newspaper. My current beach reading is dated June 24th. I just enjoy it now and have a good time instead of a bad conscience. I wish you the same - from the bottom of my heart!

LOVE, Anya