Many a one can­not deliver him­self from his own chains and yet he is his friend’s deliverer.

—Of The Friend, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

What is it about ones own prob­lems that can be so dif­fi­cult to over­come? What blinds some­one so much that they can’t help them­selves? Why is it only our friends that can bring us out of the worst situations?

I’ve come to real­ize that I fuck­ing HATE cry­ing in front of almost any­one. Pat, Aaron, John are the only peo­ple I’m com­fort­able cry­ing in front of. I’m com­fort­able around them enough that I don’t have to worry about bor­ing them, or feel­ing weak, or think­ing that my prob­lems are petty. All they care about is the state-of-mind of a friend in dis­tress, and noth­ing else. I can relax, be myself, con­cen­trate on my prob­lems, instead of fret­ting over how wor­ried I might be mak­ing them, some­thing I find extremely dif­fi­cult to do.

I remem­ber once, Trolley was hav­ing cod­ing prob­lems at work that was caus­ing him to stay late and go in on week­ends. I explained the sit­u­a­tion to Aaron, and we both agreed that we wanted to show up at his work and help him out. Unforutantely, it was even­tu­ally decided that we would hin­der more than help, due to our inex­pe­ri­ence with the soft­ware, and the fact that learn­ing the nec­es­sary code would take longer than the time we could save.

Even though Aaron and I could do noth­ing to help, I remem­ber feel­ing good about the zeal with which we sought solu­tions. Not only tak­ing great plea­sure in the fact that I could do some­thing to help a friend out, but the fact that it came so eas­ily. That my first reac­tion was to drop every­thing, and shar­ing the exact same sen­ti­ment with Aaron.

Knowing I have friends who are will­ing to do the same for me is what makes me stoic. Knowing that I have peo­ple I can relax around when I’m cry­ing, sob­bing, at my most vul­ner­a­ble, is what keeps me sane. Knowing that I have peo­ple who would put me before them­selves when nec­es­sary, while not hav­ing to worry about them at the same time, is what makes me stronger. Knowing that I have peo­ple I can trust enough to depend on, is what gives me courage. Knowing that I have peo­ple to fall back on is what keeps me from falling in the first place.

And per­haps this is why I couldn’t do this alone.