Hello, my name is...

In a huge crowd is where I am sometimes the loneliest. All those faces that I don't know have lives, stories, histories that I have no concept of. They are just faces that I don't know. I feel like a voyeur watching their interactions. I see a mother hold her child, a couple touch, friends laugh. I watch. I may never see them again, but for a fleeting moment, they were in my life. I like to be invisible, sometimes. I like to look into strangers' lives and see what others have and do and feel. It's such a simplicity, the way people interact with one another. It is a strange feeling to be in the middle of it all and not be involved in any way. But in the same vein, it makes me melancholy. It's lonely being a watcher.

I have also been the watched. It's a completely different experience. It's all encompassing to be actively involved in a moment, in a situation. You don't have time to witness things because you are too busy experiencing them.

I think I appreciate the moments in which I am involved because I have appreciated the things I am not involved in.

(But I have got a long way to go, because I still get lonely in a crowd.)