“A friend is someone who can see through you and still enjoy the view.” - Bulgarian proverb
When times are rough and wearing us down, and there seems to be no end in sight, door after door closing down a long and narrow corridor, we can feel that our friends won’t want to hear about it, that it’s too much and too heavy to share or lay on their shoulders, that we need to protect our friendships from the trials we are going through. Everyone is going through things and it can feel impossible and selfish to think of adding to what they, themselves, bear.
But that is not friendship.
And if they care, they may surprise you.
We have to dare to give them that chance.
They cannot care if they do not know. And it’s not up to them to guess. We have to find the courage to make the first move, and let them in.
Until you dare to bare yourself to a friend, to offer up a dreadfully vulnerable piece of yourself…to take that awful risk that they could crush you, you cannot know what is in their hearts. You cannot imagine how they may respond, and what they might share in return.
Sometimes we feel so isolated in what we are going through, that we cannot imagine that our very own friends may have gone through similar things too, and may truly be able to empathise, when it seems like no one else does.
Being seen and understood in what we are living through can be an incredible gift, a warm light in the darkness.
Being honest and vulnerable with your friends can open the conversation to their own experiences, previously unshared. It can make you feel so much less alone, bring you closer together than before, and make your friendship stronger.
Finding out that you can trust another person with the most fragile and raw parts of you has to be the most soul shattering feeling.
Being forgiven for not being okay may be something you didn’t realise you needed.
“A friend is someone who can see through you and still enjoy the view.”
Let them in.
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Title: Let them in
Artist: PhoJaxx
Date: November 2024
Medium: Photography and AI