QUOTE : I ache sometimes. I ache with the need for human connection. Contact. Physical contact, mental contact. The desire to touch and be touched, but also to touch someone in a less adjacent way. To touch someone’s life. To be a part of it. To be pulled in and accepted and a part of something. A tile in a mosaic that everyone agrees is stunning to behold. But then I find myself becoming part of such an ecosystem — an integral thread in a tightly-woven tapestry — and cringe with the responsibility. Their woes are my woes. Their tension is my tension. As soon as I have the thing I want so much from afar, I shrink away from the whole ordeal; happy to have been a part of something, but even happier to go and be my own entity again. A table for one. A queen-sized bed pulling half duty.