(no subject)
I've been thinking lately about room-mates.
By pure chance, you're paired up with someone. You stay with them for maybe the longest (shortest?) year of your life. And suddenly, with this stranger who is not a stranger, you have these inroads into their life. When they come home drunk, or don't come home at all, you know. When they stay up until three feverishly working to finish something, you know. When they're weeping over a loved one they just found out is dead, you know.
And when some kind person (and you know who, of course) tapes yellow-petaled flowers to her side of the door, the next day, you know. And you know why.
You know because you're there. You invade this person's life with your proximity, your presence. You share the box with them, and there are things you don't share, don't say, but privacy? There's no privacy in a box.
The first one in residence must be the best year in a voyeur's life.
I've never felt so much like I was trespassing on someone else's story.
By pure chance, you're paired up with someone. You stay with them for maybe the longest (shortest?) year of your life. And suddenly, with this stranger who is not a stranger, you have these inroads into their life. When they come home drunk, or don't come home at all, you know. When they stay up until three feverishly working to finish something, you know. When they're weeping over a loved one they just found out is dead, you know.
And when some kind person (and you know who, of course) tapes yellow-petaled flowers to her side of the door, the next day, you know. And you know why.
You know because you're there. You invade this person's life with your proximity, your presence. You share the box with them, and there are things you don't share, don't say, but privacy? There's no privacy in a box.
The first one in residence must be the best year in a voyeur's life.
I've never felt so much like I was trespassing on someone else's story.