I Used to Know You

Can I tell you how beautiful it is to finally be reading again? To stay up late multiple nights in a row, unable to put the book down? How it feels to stare at the wall as you ponder the philosophical implications of the line you just read or to feel the air catch in your throat, unable to escape, as you stumble upon a dramatic heart wrenching turn of events? Well, I could, but you should really be experiencing that yourself.

One beautifully sucky thing about humans is that they have this common thread connecting their experiences. Like Q and Margo notice from Whitman's grass, we are all connected at our roots. We all feel similar shades of happiness and anguish, sorrow and glee. We all have our own versions of love, but we all pretty much know what it feels to have an elementary school crush or to see a beautiful stranger walking down the street. That's how we relate to main characters in books. That's how we feel like a song was written for us. That's how I read about the electricity that traveled through Ethan's skin the first time he kissed Lena and hear "you didn't have to cut me off" and end up with a crooked half smile and a pile of limp, worn out memories.