soopastryheart

It’s all very confusing. One of my problems it that I mix up love and pity. I can’t really distinguish the two, but maybe they do go hand in hand, because as soon as you love someone, you don’t want them to feel pain. But you know they will. You see the tenuous illusions they surround themselves with to keep going, how easily they could be hurt and crushed, and so you pity them, in the same way that deep down you pity yourself for the very same reasons. 

– excerpt from Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames

I’d like to think I can distinguish the difference.