Friends

Imagine if you will all your friends. Not the ones that you have that you occasionally talk to, I mean the ones that you can wait maybe a day or two to talk to them again. The one's that you text first in the morning. Almost like your other half.

Now, chew on this. There's one of those kind of friends that have the same qualities as that above that when you're upset you talk to. And most of the time they listen. If anything they say the "uh-huh" and "I understand" at the right time. There's that occasional time when you wonder if they're even listening or processing any of what they say. Then, when you finally fall silent they say what you need to hear. Not necessarily what you WANT to hear, but what you NEED to hear. Sometimes, that sucks. You don't want to admit that they're right, but you have to step back and realize that they are taking an outside opinion. However, they are still biased. Now if they're you're really good friend they are more than likely on your side.

It's easy to be the one doing the talking I've discovered. The listening is easy but when you don't get to say what you need to so that the other person can hear what they need to hear. It's even harder when you realize that you can't necessarily give them what they need to hear because that would mean losing part of yourself in the process.