Everyone makes promises, whether or not we always keep them can be debatable. Personally there is one promise that I will never break; and that is the promise that I will always be there for someone, no matter what.
People make promises all the time, promises to be best friends forever, to keep each other's secrets, to never ever hurt someone, that they'll be neighbors when they're older and their kids will be best friends. But sometimes promises are broken for various reasons; sometimes to protect yourself, sometimes to protect the person that you care about, there are even times when secrets slip out, and sadly a common reason promises get broken simply because circumstances change as life goes on and we continue to grow up, as this happens we learn that growing up sometimes means growing apart. However, even with the many circumstances that life throws at me there is one promise I have made to the people i care and have cared about that I don't think I could ever break and that is the promise that I have made that I will always be there for them. I feel like if you truly care or cared about someone, it's hard to walk away from helping them when they ask.
Being there for someone is usually not a hard thing to do and there are often times there are not strings attached to their request for you to just be there for them. Sometimes old situations can resurface and bring back memories that are difficult to deal with and the initial reaction could be to want to talk to the people who were the most important to you during that time. I believe that the reason this reaction is so common is because it can be hard to open up to up to people especially when there is already someone who knows the situation. It often takes a great amount of courage to turn to someone who is no longer a significant part of your life, especially if things ended badly between the two of you. SO rather than rejecting them for what may have happened that may have hurt one or both of you. The person reaching out to you is not necessarily asking you to be their friend again or to be one of the most important people in their life again, they're simply asking for you to just listen and maybe offer some advice like you had once before.
While friendship can be a tricky thing and sometimes can end in heartbreak; your old friends are people you once cared deeply about. So when an old friend asks you to be there for them, for me, I can't break the promise I once made to always be there for them.