A good friend doesn’t make your problems smaller. They make you feel less alone with them.

Friendship gets judged by advice, as though the job were to shrink a problem down to something manageable. The real work is quieter than that. Someone who sits beside you while the thing is still heavy changes how much of it you are holding alone, and that is usually what makes it bearable.

When somebody brings you something hard this week, resist solving it in the first minute. Ask what happened, stay there while they answer, and say you are glad they told you.