Post It

thirteen

I'm hungry, really. All the excitement, all the anticipation and anxiety enhance my hunger. I think this is the reason why I'm walking faster than usual. That and because I really want to meet Archie. There are many things I want to ask him and yes I agree with H, I don't want to ruin to the surprise so I won't ask for his name. He's doing all this for me, to make this day special, why should I ruin all his effort? I want to collect every letter and get his name and finally meet him. I'll ask Archie other trivial things.

Along to my fast steps the smile stays on my lips thinking that I'm closer to meet him, to figure out his name and to finally put a face to the person who has given me a push to keep going. It's not like he's made my life better or solved all my problems, not at all, he's just made things more bearable. He's helped. But no one can cure me, not even myself. This condition is something I'll have to live with forever. All I can do is to be strong and try my hardest. It's less difficult when you have people supporting you, but I insist, it's never easy.

When you have people who care about you, who actually worry and try to help, even if they can't, you feel a wee by lighter because you remember you're not alone, although most of the time you feel like that. You know no one will ever really understand and you don't even expect them to understand anymore, but you welcome their love. Even if you take it for granted most of the time. It's no that I'm ungrateful or anything, it's just that sometimes I can't manage to figure out how to say what I have to say or do what I need to do.

Having one person who loves you unconditionally is a blessing. Moni always says I'm so lucky for the mother I have, because my mum is always worrying about me, always looking after me. Mum cares about all the little details, but not all mothers are like that. Moni always says she envies me so much for that, because she would give everything to have that kind of relationship with her own mum. I have my mother, and no matter how many times we fight, I know she's always there for me. I have my friends, Mila, Moni and Havi, and I know they love me, too. And now I feel I have also this post-it boy who cares enough to make all this for me, someone who remembers the fact I'm vegetarian.

I giggle at the memory and how he managed to get that information.

One of the hardest things for me is describing who I am without completely destroying me. I've been told that I don't know who I am because I'm incapable of telling others who Macarena is. If someone asks me to list my flaws I could fill pages. If someone asks me to list virtues I would spend days thinking but not coming up with anything.

H forced me to do both.

•••

We had been exchanging notes for around four months already. It was a routine and if I missed a post-it he would really worry. As I didn't want him to worry I always did my best to get out of my house and pick his note. At some point the notes stopped being general and became always addressed to me. They started with "Maca" and that made me feel responsible for them. Until then we had been exchanging opinions, encouragement and gratitude. Some information about ourselves was also shared but not that often. I started to wonder more about him because I wasn't satisfied with what I knew about him. I felt already attached but I still didn't know his name or his favourite colour. Not that it mattered, but it was an expression.

One sunny day in the middle of September my stranger surprised me with a note that was like taken from my mind.

Maca:

We've been chatting for four months yet I don't know that many things about you. Wanna play a game to change that?

Each day for one week you have to leave a post-it with a virtue and a flaw. I'll do the same.