Chapter 2

My name is Maya by the way, or that's what I get called, my real name is Amaya. It is because of Nonna Rita that I am baptized -Catholic- Amaya Magdalena. My little sister is baptized Anna-Guilia. my mom gave us those nicknames, that I'm deeply thankful for.

Someone with both friends and boyfriends, the type to plan their wedding with their best friend while promising each other eternal fidelity, is not me. I don't have those types of friends. I only see them in movies and read about in books. My experience with friendships is a whole other. Until now, there isn't someone I became fond of for a long time. And boyfriends ... I'm not there yet.

Maybe I'm weird. I think I'm weird. Or is it just because I feel different and "paint myself in a corner" as my mom says.

I don't think I paint myself anywhere.

However, I read a lot, and then I gather wise words. When I stumble on them, I write them down so I can remember them. And yes, I like to go and brag a little about it. It sounds cool when you like Einstein quotes, for example, this one I found on the internet:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

But when, I quoted it for Stella, one day in the classroom, but she looked at me like I was the idiot here, not her.

I also stumbled on the old, greek philosopher Aristotle:

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

I wrote that down in my math notebook. This, I have no experience with, but I think is something magnificent about that quote. I, of course, googled Aristotle and via Wikipedia, found the following:

Aristotle  Greek: (Ἀριστοτέλης (384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Along with Plato, he is regarded as the one who has had the greatest influence on the thoughts of the Western world.

I don't need to know more about him, nor should one exaggerate their wisdom.

In my history book, I wrote Amor Vincit Omnia, that's Latin and means Love Conquers All. My dad wrote it to my mom, ones they broke up. A card with those words on a bouquet with at least 100 red roses. Then they got back together, they still are, thank god.

Jully, my little sister, is both pretty sweet and very annoying. Decent, popular, many friends, pretty, good at soccer. One of those charmings boyish-girls, who will be thrown in a kids-movie. It's only the red hair she's missing.

Philosophy and wise word doesn't interest her.

So under my "Carpe Diem" sign on my door, I wrote, "go away Jully". I don't think she read it.

"Carpe Diem" aka "seize the day" - living in the moment, I can identify with, even though it's hard. It's from the movie Dead Poets Society that my mom is obsessed with. Okay, movies, I would love to have a Robin Williams- type as a teacher and go to a school that looks like a castle, with students in uniform and the whole caboodle. Pure Harry Potter. And yes, I was one of these nerds that got extremely disappointed on my 11th birthday. Sat, god help me, a whole day and waited vainly for a letter from Hogwarts.

Well, here I lay in my bed with starting excessive thoughts. Do you know... when you're lying and are a little afraid and can't fall asleep, or maybe don't dare to, because you know that a little girl with mournful eyes is waiting, as soon as you step in dreamland?

So you lay there and can't stop your thoughts in any way. Thoughts spinning around in an endless, confusing loop, and gets more and more gloomy; bombs, war, terror, global warming, melting icebergs, dying polar bears, tsunamis, cancerous waves ... Well, there is plenty of anxiety to choose from.

It's even worse when you have those numerous existential thoughts: Where you're just such a tiny insignificant dim, in a bed, in a house, in Denmark, in Europe, on a small planet floating around out there now, or is it with a god or nowhere? Are you just dead when you die? And where do you go then? Ugh, this could make you insane...

These are the kind of thoughts that sometimes malign me.

What is even a thought? I read once on a Gajol-box that I'll never forget:  I have now been a brain surgeon for 35 years, but I have yet to see a thought.

Very thoughtful.

My eyelids are getting heavier. I'm yawning. My body twitches, I'm exactly in the middle of sleep and full consciousness.

Holy crap, is it her that's standing and staring at me?

I'm freezing, and not fully asleep yet.

I squint in the dark. Is it her, that's sitting in the flowered armchair, that I inherited from my grandma? Or is it just all the clothes that I didn't put away yet?

I hate it. Now the real anxiety is for real creeping in. I hate the dark but refuse to sleep with the light. After all, my grandma taught me a quote from a french philosopher, Albert Camus:

"at the end of the darkness there is unavoidable light, which we already can glimpse and we simply have to fight to reach."

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