It was around 1:30 in the morning and I couldn’t sleep. I looked outside and there was almost a foot of snow on the empty road sloped up toward the top of the hill. I drank some water and tried to go back to sleep. The phone suddenly rang into the silence of an already curious night and it was one of my relatives on the other side: my father’s cousin. I often compare her to “Miss Havisham” in Great Expectations – because of her contradictory character and her direct and wordy conversational style. She is too combustible and indiscreet. Her attitude towards life often consists of a clumsy sense of gum-chewing dismissal. Her enigmatic writing style always makes me feel like I have a subnormal intelligence – because she uses big words in complex and never-ending sentences.

The whole situation was already feeling like a horror movie. She mockingly got to the point asking me “what do you do besides work?”. I groggily mumbled around a bit, and explained that I was doing a few things … she continued by saying that she had had a conversation with my aunt about me. And then, with a polemical tone she asked me to pick up a blank paper and write this …

“Unique individuals love contradiction, good stories, long conversations, individuality, people, and humor. They seek order in disorder and they search for disorder in order. They have an average IQ and a high EQ. They care for the ones in pain and need to love. They are dreamers and dissatisfied with conformity. They’re interested in voices, harmony, and language. They understand that persistence is enough for being exceptional …”

… and she ended the conversation by saying “go back to sleep and don’t forget to think!”