Honesty With Old Friends

There are a couple of friends of mine I've had since middle school ... we don't tend to keep in contact all that often since we go to separate colleges, but when we're on break we have our get-togethers. Back in my middle school and high school days, I really owed them a hell of a lot because without them I would have been completely friendless—I was 100% alone for a year. There were times when I honestly felt like such an outcast that I wanted to lash out violently at everyone who was laughing at me.

These friends were my saving grace, finally I had someone I could laugh with, instead of being laughed at. And I never truly thanked them for being friends with me. I feel sometimes like it saved my life and helped me endure those years. I could look forward to seeing them every day and when I did the day didn't feel wasted. I guess I never took the initiative to thank them because I didn't want to come off as "weak" for showing emotions, but that time has passed. I'm going to at least thank them because they probably don't know how much the times we've spent together means to me.

Because we rarely ever took the chance to speak honestly about our feelings, I want to be the first to open up that discussion, to ask if everything's really going alright in their lives. There's a chance that they've been suffering without telling me, and that can really be a killer. Eight of my cousin's friends committed suicide after coming back from war overseas, and they didn't reach out so they couldn't get help and nobody knew just how hard they'd been hurting. My point is, I thought about my friends and realized that I could be taking their existences for granted, assuming they're happy just because they haven't said otherwise. And if they're anything like me, they could be bottling themselves up. I want to at the very least take that stopper off and open a genuine conversation with them.

If I end up coming out to them in the process, so be it. Life is too short, and if they really have a problem with me then it's better I confront that and deal with it right out the gate. My hope is that we move on from this meeting as more closely connected people.