Friends! "in a different time"

Lex and I left the house yesterday evening to go hang out with our two favorite beautiful women. We have been doing this a lot lately. While we were there and the night was winding down, I sent a text to an old friend who I was lucky enough to get back in touch with after many years. He recently moved into the next town over which made it easier to see each other and help each other out. This friend had a rough day and was going through a hard time so I wanted to check in and make sure he didn't need me. Good thing I did, because I really think he did need me there.
We left our sleepy lady friends around 11 pm and travel north to see this close friend. This is a friend who was family to me before I had my current family. We have known each other since we were 6. After 25 years of friendship it is just like picking up where we dropped off 11 years ago the last time we hung out.
He's a great guy with a heart of gold. Unfortuantely he often too quick to try to give that golden mass in his chest away to the first available woman he feels a connection to, and thus ends up in heartbreak and misery. Last night was unfortuantely not much of an exception to this rule. He had been drinking all day to deal with his pain & misery. A certain self destruct mechanism surrounds him when he gets like that and too often he just needs to be close to another human being, to talk, to reminisce, to be reminded of what an awesome person he is trully. We sat around and did just that, talked of old times, talked of current times, talked of what went wrong, what we did right, where we wanted to go, where we once thought we were, fears, hopes, dreams, emotions, relationships, we seemed to cover most of it all.
Finally at 4:30 in the morning, having a weeks worth of sleep deprivation finally catch up to me, I bid my friend, my brother, fairwell, and I left to head home. I was happy to have been there during a time when he was in need, a time when he was vulnerable, and give him a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen. I hope that I am there again if I am ever needed in the future.