What would you do if you knew you were going to lose your memory at the end of every day?

Ardita Koxhaj, Kucove

4/03/203
Dear Diary,

Tomorrow is my 18th birthday. I’m hoping it is going to be a great day for me, with lots of fun and lots of love around me. My parents and friends have organized a “surprise” party for me, which is not so surprising anymore, because I already know about it, but nobody knows I do, so shhh… You’re wondering how I learned about it, aren’t you? Well, I heard my parents talk about it last night, but I didn’t want to tell them I knew cos if I know they’re happy if I’m happy, and I know they want to surprise me today, so I won’t let the cat out of the bag.

Anyway, now I have to sleep, so I wake up fresh tomorrow. Bye, bye!

P.S. Oh, I almost forgot, my father is going to take me to the lake tomorrow in his car. This is so exciting! I can’t wait.

… (13 months later)

Dear Diary,

Tomorrow is my 18th birthday. I’m hoping it is going to be a great day for me, with lots of fun and lots of love around me. My parents and friends have organized a “surprise” party for me, which is not so surprising anymore, as I already know about it, but nobody knows I do, so shhh… You’re wondering how I learned about it, aren’t you?

P.S. Oh, I almost forgot. My father is going to take me to the lake tomorrow in his car. This is so exciting! I can’t wait!

Dear Diary,

Yesterday night, after I wrote about “the day of my birthday”, I decided to go through your pages to see what I had written before and guess what?

I had been writing the same thing for the last 5 months! 5 MONTHS!!! Do you get it? And you know what’s worse than that? That I didn’t know anything about it so I decided to leave a note to myself saying that I should buy today’s paper and I did it.

FLASH NEWS: Today is the 15th of April 2014.

I was in a shock so I decided to ask my parents about it and they were furious, but sad at the same time. After I insisted for 12 hours, they decided to tell me the truth. And the truth is: I haven’t been living my life for the past year.
The day of my birthday, my father and I had had an accident. He was fine and he’s still fine thank goodness but I hit my head. And now I’m sick. I forget about everything at the end of each day, well everything that happens during the day.

Right now, I want to cry and scream and shout as hard as I can at the top of my lungs but I can’t. There’s something that blocks me. Maybe it’s the thought that everybody’s life goes on.

What am I going to do next? I don’t know yet for sure. I’m confused and I don’t know who I am anymore. But one thing is for sure: I will leave a note to myself every morning, telling me that I already know about this situation and that I shouldn’t be scared cos everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to tell myself that my father’s gray hair shouldn’t scare me or make me cry cos years are passing by and he’s growing older and that’s something normal for a man at this age. I’m going to remind myself that I won’t be 18 anymore, that years will go by for me, as they do for everybody else, even though I won’t be able to remember them. And that the wrinkles are a part of me now and that feeling tired is going to be normal and that people I know are going to die and other people will be born, that my sister is going to get married and have children of her own…

And I will fill the hours with pictures and names and stories who will remind me that life goes on.

And I’m going to remind myself to write and read everything that I write on your pages.

It’s going to be hard, I know. Harder than everything else I’ve done. But hey, my family lived with me for more than a year and even though it was hard for them, they made it. I can make it too! I know I can. But I will need your help. Oh, and tomorrow, remind me to thank my parents for everything. Good night!

See you on the 16th of April.