To be a friend.

It will change you. It’s that moment when you realize you care. When they look you in the eye and you want nothing but to wrap them up and take their pain away. When you don’t understand what happened to make you love so much, but you wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s that moment when you forget yourself in listening to them because there’s no one else who will and only a few others that they trust. It’s such an honor to be trusted. It’s such an honor to love, but such a difficult thing when they’re afraid to let you and you can’t begin to understand the depth of their pain. You don’t cry for your own sadness, but you fight back tears for theirs. Selfishness is broken in that moment, if only for a moment. Even though you don’t understand any of this, it’s the best thing that could happen.
This doesn’t just happen. The scars from your own past pain begin to ache, the change in your heart causing pressure like a change in the weather. They remind you why it’s been so long since you empathized with any other pain. You’ve spent so much time protecting yourself and not letting anyone in, but suddenly you realize something amazing. You would rather feel all of their pain with them just to understand than to shut them out.
And they’re so afraid, they shut you out.