It’s 1:30 in the morning and I? I am still up and completely unable to sleep.

I just got off the phone with an old college friend. He and I met in the very first days of college, forced together because my friend liked his roommate. We ended up at a party together that night awkwardly playing as beer pong partners while our friends flirted in the other room. He hardly said a word to me and of course I took that as my cue to ramble on incessantly.

Back at his room his two roommates were with their respective girls so he and I wandered to the porch of his dormitory. We stayed there for hours in the warm summer air talking about our families, our high schools, our friends at home. I told him about my problems with my boyfriend at the time (who by the way is absolutely awesome and you should check out his site), he told me about his problems with his parents. Maybe it was the excessive alcohol that night, or maybe it was the fact that we were both new to this whole life, but he was crying. And against my usual pattern, I loved that he was crying.

We ended up dating for a few short weeks, a relationship that I really can’t remember the details of. I don’t remember our first kiss, or what happened when I spent the nights there. I don’t even remember us ever breaking up. He was my first college relationship. I do, however, remember how we ended up together again the next year, my go-to guy after I had another bad breakup. And again several times in our junior year. We shared all of the same friends, we shared six packs and bar tabs. We shared bonfires in his backyard and s’mores. We share a thousand good memories.

I love making him smile, but I’ve always hated that it takes so much to get it there. During one of the times we were dating I discovered that he was ticklish on his hipbones and would tickle him mercilessly just to see him smile and laugh. Despite all of this, the guy is always seemingly depressed.

So it wasn’t a surprise tonight when we had one of the most serious conversations to date. How he is racked with depression, just as his mother is, but that his family refuses to admit to these things. How he’s considering joining the army because he doesn’t know what else to do with his life. At one point I asked what would make him happy. “I want to jump out of a plane,” he said. I told him that I’ve always wanted to go skydiving, that I’d be a willing partner for it. “I only want to go once and I won’t need a chute.” I never realized it was this deep.

So we talked, I questioned and he answered, I begged and he agreed. The things he said, well, they shook me up. To a point where I’m worried that I should tell someone. When I asked if there was anything in his life that was making him happy he said, “well you, obviously”. But I’m worried that isn’t enough. I convinced him to call the counseling center at the school tomorrow and said I’d try to come down this weekend to see him. But what I really don’t know is what to say. I feel like I want to say the right thing to flip some switch in his head, something that will make him feel completely different. I want to have the solution but it’s not my place to solve his problems.