Note to self (Books - Electricity by Ray Robinson)

Lily, the narrator of Electricity, is a young women deserted by her family, epileptic, put into foster care, and eventually set up in an apartment at 18 to survive on her own. It has made her hard but it has also made her practical. Her landlord suggests she work calling out bingo numbers at the arcade:

So I put the flowers in the sink, thinking what could I say? I heard him go you're a tidy bugger. I knew what he was looking at: the graffiti on the walls, the tiny pillows on the corners of everything. He never asked. Never said anything. Just gawped and looked confused. It was just another way I coped. Notes to myself. No sharp corners. Notes about my tablets and how to make food the safest way. What I should and shouldn't eat. Sounds stupid. I started doing it soon as I moved in. Had no one to remind me what to do any more. And the words - they made me feel safe, that's all. The biggest was the one I'd written with a black marker pen. It was on the wall facing you when you came in. I wrote it there because sometimes I forget who I am or where I am. I forget where I live.

DON'T WORRY HOME BED SLEEP BE OK. LOVE LILY

I'd even put some kisses to myself XXX

Sometime these things are a comfort.

That note breaks my heart.