Every step along the way

Something peculiar happened to me last week: I got tagged in a chain game on social media. Right when I thought chain e-mails were over, I started noticing a few of my high school friends posting black and white photos on Facebook and tagging others, until one day I received my initiation and was invited to join their exclusive game. 

How thrilling!

picture tag game on social media

The main difference from other chain games was that this wasn't a 'one and done' thing. It is a week's worth of commitment to the game. Luckily the instructions were vague enough that it didn't get repetitive: post a black and white picture of your life, no people and no explanations.

I thought 'pictures of my life' sounded open-ended enough for me to put a creative spin to it.

Most of my friends from home were posting random shots from their daily life, which I found extremely interesting, considering we are all living in different countries. I got to see a little bit of life in Cambodia, in China, in the Netherlands, in Italy of course...

I believe life is all about zooming out. So, I decided to use pictures of seven places I have visited in my life; and for seven people, well, that's where my mind network signal showed me an error message. As I said, most of my friends were in the game already. Luckily, my best friend from high school, who is incidentally into natural landscape photography, hadn't been tagged yet. I took that as a sign!

Day one: Prague, tagging my high school friend whom I shared the hotel room with during a school trip to Prague. No explanations needed.

What next? 

I keep my Facebook contacts relatively under control, ie: if we've not spoken in two years and I have no idea what you're up to or if you even care, I will most likely 'virtually unfriend' you. This means I don't have so many people available to be tagged. Remove the ones already in the game, the ones that barely check their socials, the ones that don't post private pictures, the ones that don't do chain mail games. 

Tagging seven people was harder than travelling to seven countries!

I thought, maybe, I can tag people I have shared those destinations with, or that I know have been to those same places even without me. Or, the easiest option, just tag random people because it's a simple chain tagging game on Facebook.

Too bad I don't really have a life so, after a day of thinking, I reached my ideal solution: I am going to tag one person per friend circle, so the game can reach its full potential. The hardest thing was to find seven defined groups without them overlapping. Friends from home? Check. Friends from Melbourne? Facebook tells me I have about sixty of them, so I might find some. Friends from my Erasmus year abroad? Lolita friends?... It might just work out!

Let's spread this game like it's glitter in someone else's home!

Day two: Paris, tagging an improv theatre classmate from Melbourne.
Day three: Durham, tagging a French girl I met during my year abroad.
Day four: Las Vegas, tagging a Melbournian friend who comes from Argentina.
Day five: London, tagging a friend from my Lolita days in Italy who lives in Japan.
Day six: Melbourne, tagging a friend from work who comes from the other side of Australia.
Day seven: Venice, tagging my cousin who moved to Germany.

Glitter bomb effect!

The moral of this story is that travelling, seeing places, and meeting new people, are some of the things I am most proud of and that I value the most. When I was living in Italy I tried so hard to escape, to live a fuller life in a bigger place. At the time, nothing seemed enough, from online friends dreaming of Japan, to a 300 days adventure in England. Now, looking back, I can say that I treasure every small step along the way and this game was my way to acknowledge you all, and pat myself on the shoulder: having so many groups of friends is an achievement no one would have predicted from a girl who invited the whole kindergarten to her 5th birthday party and only her best friend, with mother, showed up.

Image: via

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