Sticky Notes

An excerpt from a commissioned play written for young adults in the style of the Vagina Monologues 

 

This is my favourite notepad - a sticky notepad. I like sticky notes, I always have but I like them even more than I ever did, and really not for the right reasons. My life is filled with sticky notes. 

 

I went to a psychiatrist, long before my diagnosis - I suffered from depression. Which only got worse, but that’s not the point of this story. So, I talked to this guy who had spent a lot of time working with a method he referred to as the science of happy. The ability to train our brains to be happy instead of  seeking things to do to make us feel happy. I liked him, a less quacky than all the quackers in the psych pond. I’m not big on therapy cause they always only seem to want to medicate me and I don’t wanna be medicated, I wanna be happy. Anyway, so before my diagnosis this guy taught me to write ten things that I thought were good about me, not good in my life, but my ten best qualities and write them on sticky notes and stick them in odd places around my apartment. Positive affirmations. Notations that would make me realize what I still had to offer instead of allowing myself to wallow. Well, before I knew my entire apartment was covered in sticky notes and although it was hard to write them, I was happy when I did cause I’d get a bowl in the morning, for... what that’s stuff called... it goes with milk, and a and a and a... ... ... Where was I. Hang on I got this, I wrote it down somewhere, just gimme a minute. I’ve got it written it down. I have to write everything down nowadays, and it’s not that I don’t know, it’s not even that I can’t remember. I just lose track. and that’s not like me. I was the type of person that used to remember everything. Every file name, number, and where I put it down. Oh right, I used to work in human resources so I did a lot of filing, managed a lot of clients, and I knew them all by name. By face not so much cause I was always in the office, but... hang on... I’m getting off track. Where did I put notes. I know I put them somewhere. In a pocket maybe. Or did I leave it in my car. Maybe my purse, no my briefcase, no. There here somewhere. I know I didn’t leave at them at home because I checked my list with the stuff in my bag before I left the house. So I know they’re here. Hang on. What was I talking about. Sticky notes. Right! sticky notes. So, for a while I had positive sticky notes all around my house, telling me how great I am, but now I have sticky notes to tell me what to do, when to do it. Like, when I go to the grocery store, I can’t go without a list otherwise I’ll forget why I’m even at the store in the first place. 

 

That’s part of the illness. Not remembering. And I can remember stuff from way back, I mean I know the catalyst for World War I was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I mean, I’m not stupid. Just foggy. Brain fog, everyone talks about it and it’s weird because you’ll think you’re fine until you really need to remember something and the fog sets in. After treatment, the fog clears but not everyone can get treatment, and I am one of those, one of the people who can’t get treatment, but I’ve learned to manage the fog with sticky notes. Lots and lots of sticky notes. Sometimes, I have so much to remember that I’ll wake up in the morning covered in sticky notes. Proverbial and literal. So many notes to help me get through my day, but I get through it and sometimes the fog clears and I’m excited, and sometimes it doesn’t and I’m frustrated because I want the fog to clear, so I use sticky notes. I adapt because I am not a victim, and I will never become a victim. The minute that I feel sorry for myself is the minute this chronic illness wins, and I will not allow this illness to win. I have already lived through all the depression one person can take, and I will not go through it again. So, my life is full of sticky notes, reminders, solutions to the fog. Solutions for a life filled with strength because I will not allow this fog to be my demise. To be my darkness. I will not allow the fog to run my life. Control my destiny. I will sticky note myself until there is not a space on my walls, if it takes each day that I wake to walls, doors, mirrors, filled with lists, notes, reminders, and I’m not messing around with a bow of red string as a reminder. I am keeping real reminders of my day to day life so the fog won’t find me, and when it does, I will pause, find my sticky note and realize what I am forgetting. And when I realize what I am forgetting that is a victory and the fog has lost if only for a moment the fog has lost and I have won and I will hold that victory until the fog takes it away and then I will plan my next victory.