Buckley,
Cool to read your post today and I have been thinking a lot lately about the burden of being an overly empathetic person, which I am.
I thought your whole post nailed it, really, and I was especially drawn to this description, which is so accurate:
- The thing about empathy - it's being able to know what it's like in another persons shoes. To see it. It goes beyond sympathy. It's almost like wearing their situation as your own.
For most of my life, I thought everyone did this, really. Only recently have a learned that this degree of empathy is rare, and can make life hard. It also comes with, at least in my case, very little empathy for myself. so a double whammy.
But I don't edit myself as much as you describe, at least not any more. Maybe its because I am a woman and old enough to care less than I used to.
So, I am with Mizz and others, reach out. Let him know you care and are there. The trick is to do it without emotional investment in the outcome. This is hard, at least for me, but IME it is the difference between doing it truly selflessly to help if you can and doing it for mixed reasons as you describe.
He may reach back, he may not. Either way, you will have done what you thought was right, which is all we can do. And if you don't, and this is the burden of the overly empathetic person, you will feel guilty, which is not good for anyone.
Great to see you!