Friendships, like any kind of relationship, take work.

I’m a fan of  TV, I am.  I like TV shows where it revolves around the life and times of a small group of friends and how they are getting through life and doing it together.  I like, I love it –I’m envious of it.

It’s one thing to watch those fun rom-coms and put yourself in a position where the guy is saying all the right things in the right way at the right time and the music and the chemistry it makes me want to be in love in a movie.  Then an hour or so later, it’s over. With TV, we invest more time into getting to know these “people”  We’re in it WITH them, we consider them our friends (to an extent)  We’ll refer to them by first name (character name), we’ll quote them, we’ll have our dinner with them, make lunch with them, talk back to them–as if they were experiencing “us” as well.  And the only difficult thing about that, for me, is it’s not real.  It’s super fun.  Absolutely.  But it’s not real.

I don’t have those kinds of friendships and relationships.  With the careers, and same pubs, and if one person gets pregnant everyone in the group is an auntie or uncle.  I don’t have the kinds of relationships and friendships where I can call someone up and ask them to come over and they drop everything and do it because they know I need them.  This is not a hit towards the friends and friendships I have now, it’s just that watching it makes me want it.  More than watching people eat an amazing meal makes me want that meal, more than watching the guy get the girl and I want to be that girl–I want those kinds of friendships.  And those take work.  They take time, they take effort…they take being in the same state, the same town, the same time zone.  My friends are all just a phone call away, or a plane ride–and I want them closer.  But they can’t (and won’t) drop their lives and move out there (and that’s okay)  and I can’t and won’t drop my life here and move somewhere else and that is ALSO okay.  It doesn’t make me want it any less.  It doesn’t take away those times in the middle of the day where I have no where to go, no one to play with, where I’m not just alone…but lonely.  And that’s hard for me.

I depended on my relationships for a long time to give me meaning and validation, and have finally gotten out of that head space.  I depended on my early twenties and keeno job as a revenue manager at a great hotel, and rehearsals and cocktails, and cast parties, and karaoke slumber parties, and BBQ’s…to last me forever.  Well, maybe I didn’t “depend” on it–but I wanted that life really REALLY badly.  Because it was easy and fun.  I had friends, I went to work, I played with my friends.

Then a decade or so passes and I’ve changed careers a couple times, I’ve changed living locations a couple times, and my friends are still my friends they are just not near me–and that’s really REALLY hard.  I have no one to sit and spend quality time with to vent and talk.  Most of my conversations are superficial and that’s because they are with people that I don’t know very well.  Who could potentially become “those kinds” of friends but I just don’t have those relationships NOW.  And I miss it NOW.  And I long for it NOW.

I love my alone time.  I have found great healing in my independence.  I have found quiet time to be very good for me emotionally and mentally.  I have found having my own space to be my sanctuary.  And sometimes I want to share that space with people I care about that care about me, without compromising my independence or emotional or mental state.  I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else to feel responsible for ME.  I don’t want someone to be at my mercy, nor do I want to be at someone else’s mercy.

I want friends I spend all of my holidays with. I want the friends and bonds that FRIENDS have, that the cast on Grey’s Anatomy have, the three musketeers!, the cast of HIMYM, Sex and the City, the L word, and Bones.  And more.  I want straight male friends I can call and hang out with that don’t want to get in my pants and that i don’t want to get in their pants and its okay for us to have dinner and drinks and fall asleep in the same bed because we’re friends.  Like a slumber party.

I miss my friends.  I want my friends.  I want new friends, and more friends, close friends, dependable friends, responsible friends, fun friends, helpful friends, caring friends.  Friends I can turn to in a crisis, friends that know they can turn to me in a crisis.

I want I want I want. Me Me Me. Mine Mine Mine. Now Now Now.

Because being alone is great for the most part.  So long as it is a “healthy” alone-ness.  It’s the lonely and longing part of companionship from a girl or guy that don’t want to kiss me and have sex with me and woo me, that just want to be friends.  Good friends.  Great friends.  Best friends.  Important friends.

I miss that place.  Those times, those people.  And I don’t necessarily long for the past nor do I regret moving across the nation from the people I have strong bonds with.  But I miss that place in my heart being full.  It’s been empty for a while.  Quietly collecting dust.  Pictures and memories in the albums, but no one is sitting on the couches.  I miss that certain kind of company.  And today, for no reason at all, it just seems harder to realize and deal with.  It’s like wanting to host a party just because, then realizing you don’t have anyone to invite that would actually be able to be there and/or want to be there.  I have the space for the party, and the invitations are set but I haven’t a name or address to write on them.  And that’s just hard for me right now.  Really, really hard.