When I look at the people around me, I can’t help but see how little I must really know about them. Which is not to say that I don’t have close relationships; it’s just that there’s a limit to how much we can possibly know another person, especially if we’ve only known them for five, ten, twenty years. I’ve known my mother since I was born, and I still find out new things about the way she thinks and feels and acts, because our relationship is constantly shifting, from mother-child to motherfriend-daughterfriend to friend-friend. In other words, the extent to which I know people is limited by my relationship to them.