@silenthours888: to the person across the room at every serious moment of my life: stop looking at me. you know what you did. we were at a family dinner. my aunt was saying grace. everyone had their heads down, it was quiet, and my uncle's chair made one small sound, just one, and i knew. i didn't even have to look up. i could feel you not laughing. i could feel it from eight feet away. i made the mistake of glancing over and you were staring right at me with your lips pressed together and your eyes huge, and that was it. i was gone. i had to pretend i was coughing. i had to leave a room during a prayer because of a sound that wouldn't even be funny if i tried to explain it. and that's the thing, it can never be explained. we've tried. someone always says "what? what's so funny?" and one of us starts to say it and it's just not there. "ok so the guy's shoes..." and we're crying and everyone's looking at us like we need help. we've done it at work, at a funeral once, god forgive us, in the quiet part of a movie, in a meeting where i had to mute myself and put my head down on the desk. one eyebrow from you and my whole professional life is at risk. you don't even have to be near me. i can see something at the store and turn around to look at you, and that's when it hits, that you're not there, and i take a picture and send it with no words. you always get it. i don't know if you understand what that does for me. i've spent a lot of my life feeling a little bit outside of things. being in a room full of people, watching them talk, wondering if i'm the only one who sees it the way i do. wondering if i'm strange. and then there you are, over the top of everyone's heads, seeing the exact same thing at the exact same second. it's the least lonely feeling i know. we don't need to say a word. you just look at me and for a moment there are two of us in on it, and i'm not strange, or if i am, at least we're strange together. i know life moves, and we won't always be in the same rooms. we probably won't always sit at the same table. but i hope that whoever sits across from you next can keep up, and i hope you still send me the pictures. one of my favorite human interactions is being able to just look at someone and know y'all noticed the same thing and burst out laughing without sayin a word. mine has always been you. and yes, i'm still mad about the prayer.

silent hours

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Sunday 08 November 2026 23:37:30 GMT