Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

I imagine that seeing your past in someone else's present might not feel stupendous. As a matter of fact, it might hurt all over again. Same as it did the first time, whether it is the pain of years or of yesterday. I imagine that hunting for memories of "moving on" or "letting go" of whatever it was might remind you that pain changes things. That one way or another, things are just different than they were before, before whatever happened happened to fall into your lap.

So thank you. Thank you for talking to me. For taking my hand as I teared up, too tired to even think about it all anymore, and using the memories you might've tried to forget to validate my pain. For letting me scream my heart at you at 2 AM standing outside on the side of the road, letting my words writhe on until I had no energy left and then hugging me to give me energy of yours. For going story for story with me for hours, sifting through the heartaches that might have left you broken to piece me back together in friendship. Thank you for using everything that hurt you, everything that shook your world, every mistake, every heartache, everything to tell me that I am not alone.

Thank you for offering me advice, any and all that you had.

I imagine that sometimes, you had no words for what hurt you. That there wasn't some all-encompassing phrase that you could utter to make everything make sense. I imagine that you worked through endless amounts of resources - friends, family, past experiences, the ever-valuable Google, anything - to make heads or tails of your situation. I imagine that advice that helped was hard to come by. That you trial-and-errored your way through until the cusp of some kind of breakthrough gave a hesitant wave your direction.

So thank you. Thank you for taking that distilled, hard-fought, well-tested advice and sharing it with me. Thank you for giving so much of yourself even when I had nothing to give in return. Thank you for reminding me of my value when I felt like nothing at all. Thank you for sharing with me your advice, both that which you learned through experience and that which you learned through others, with confidence that it would work, even if it had not yet fully worked in your life yet. Thank you for being a wealth of wisdom for a fool of a girl who keeps tripping over life's flat surfaces.

Thank you for keeping me from downplaying my pain because you know how much it hurts.

I imagine that sometimes you felt completely alone. That sometimes, it felt as though the people around you could not possibly hope to understand your pain. That the world was caving in and no one else could see it. So you kept it in and kept letting those around you believe that you were stable. And sometimes, you really weren't. It just became too hard to explain, and keeping up appearances suddenly outweighed the alternative. Even if neither one was less weighted in pain.

So thank you. Thank you for giving me what you might not have had. Thank you for saying with a hug, with a look, with a moment of silence, with a story of your own, that you understood as best as someone would ever be able how much things were hurting. Thank you for staying by my side and making me feel as though the world wouldn't collapse. Thank you for letting me stow the explanations until I really wanted to offer them, for listening to the stories as they happened, for answering my quips of "It's okay" with the quick response that "No, it isn't, but it will be." Thank you for keeping me honest with both you and myself. Thank you for letting me feel the feelings I feel even if they remind you of pains of your past.

Thank you for being there.

You could've been anywhere else. You could've made yourself scarce. You could have left my pain in the hands of someone else. I never would or could have blamed you. You could've easily ignored what you saw.

You didn't.

So thank you. Thank you for being there in a way other people couldn't. For using your pain to help mine. I owe you a debt of gratitude I am unable to fully express.

I hope that pain is long gone from your life or finds a way to rearrange into joy. I assure you, for what you've done for me, that is everything I want for you.