… and I flushed with humiliation, rolled away from you, and let the fan cool my face. … Later, still awake, … I scooted back to touch the top of your foot with just the heel of mine and finally fell asleep beside you.

—

Erica Moore, Libertad from Coming & Crying.

I know everyone is going on and on about this book, but seriously I have been lying here reading this book for two hours and going through all these emotions, reminiscing and regretting, self-loathing and self-assurance.

But then I got to this part and it broke me. I cried over this one little action, this movement I did not so long ago. Knowing that the person who inadvertently, and still unknowingly, made you feel self-conscious and stupid, has fallen asleep, and of course you are not going to risk waking them up by moving too much, but you just cannot stand to be so close and not touch, and anything is better than nothing, even if it means hovering your foot so gingerly that it still aches in your calf muscle the next afternoon.

I know this feeling, too. I know this feeling, too.

(via carolinemartin)

Sometimes I forget that so many people experience the same things without talking about them, and that book has made me feel, over and over again, that we’re all so much more alike than anyone cares to realize.

Holding yourself in the most uncomfortable position just to not overstep a boundary, or for fear of embarrassment, or to be just close enough to someone, and waking up to the aches and pains in your muscles (or never having slept)… that is something that feels so personal, yet when you say something like that, someone’s eyes will water and they nod in recognition of the actions that make us all human.

I’m a little tender at the moment, so this sinks in deeply, but I know in a short while I’ll forget again.  It’s reasons like this that I’m finding it increasingly difficult to dislike pissy people; they may have spent all night with their body hovering so closely to someone else that it hurt, and are lovesick and heartbroken and hopeful all at once and they just can’t say it.

I just want to pass out some hugs.