I had a long, whiny, petulant post in my head that says, waaaaaaa, I’m all alone. I have no friends. My family doesn’t even know I exist. Feel sorry for me. Feel bad for me. Tell me how important and valuable I am.

And some of that may spill over into this but maybe not.

It’s hard for me to let things go. And I guess the nature of friendship is that it ebbs and flows, like everything else in life. But I hate the ebb and want the flow all the time.

This week has been particularly hard. Naturally, the holiday made it difficult because my best friend, Z, is at home with her family, which is where she needs to be. She jokingly invited me to come along and some day, I’ll take her up on that offer. Anna offered for me to join her for her funky, funny Thanksgiving at an old ‘50s diner down near the airport, which I did and which was fun. But that was it. No other offers, no other friends checking in to see what I was doing. Nothing. But they all have their lives and things going on and I have to accept the fact that I’m just not a part of their lives anymore and let it go. I did get an invite from Kerr, a new friend, after a Facebook post about wanting something to do in the evening and ended up at a very funny, drunken, disorganized Thanksgiving dinner that was a blast and very, very weird. But even my family didn't bother to call me to wish me Thanksgiving. I had to call them and we spent a total of five minutes before they hung up.

But what has exacerbated it was a flood in my bedroom Wednesday night. Was out all day, teaching and rehearsal, etc. Came home to a waterfall in my bedroom. Literally like a tap was turned on in my lighting fixture and had been on apparently most of the day. My carpet is soaking wet (still) and smells so absolutely delightful. I had to completely dump my bedroom into the living room so I could make sure nothing else got soaked. Luckily, nothing important got wet, including my laptop or my hard drives.

I called Anna and she immediately ran over and helped me get stuff out and patted me on the back figuratively. I’m so glad she was there and willing to come over and watch me freak out.

I did what we do nowadays - updated my status on Facebook about this. Got a few “oh, that’s too bad” comments back. And nothing else.

I guess my expectations of friendship is higher than I realized.

My friendship with Z and Anna is what I expect a friendship to be. We talk at least once a week. Talk. By phone. Or in person. Sure, we text and email and Facebook in between but we have some face time in between. If I don’t hear from one of them for a while, I call them. Vice versa. Anna called me once just because I hadn’t updated my Facebook status for a day or two. God bless her.

Maybe those expectations are too high. Maybe I should settle for friendships that are loose and casual, with no expectations and no consistency. Call once in a while, see each other at events, cute Facebook comments and pictures with no real substance in between. Be happy and delightful and perky every time we’re together, keep the real feelings and stuff under the surface so as not to disrupt anything or put anybody in an uncomfortable situation. Keep my mouth shut, show up and smile. That’s apparently what I’m supposed to be in a lot of my friendships lately.

Maybe being alone with a couple of real, true friends who I can yell at and yell with and be yelled at by is preferable. I spent too many years putting on a face, hiding things without release to do that over again for people who only talk to me for 10 minutes if I come to a show and can’t be bothered to respond to invitations to do something or reach out to me when I’ve reached out to them over and over again.

These couple of close friendships require no reaching. They require only a response to a text for “Pie?”, which we have never actually eaten in response to such a text. They require only bringing myself to the table, whether it’s a table at Olive Garden or at Z’s house. Z and I can spend two hours walking around Target and Vroman’s and still need eight more hours to talk. I can tell either of them anything and be angry, both with them and with myself, and they can do the same. I can be me around them and not have to be Superwoman, emotionless and undemanding.

I’m looking at what I need to change to make sure I’m not out there, pissing off the whole world. But my constant companions assure me they love me just as I am - fragile, demanding, needy, occasionally bitchy, funny, determined, driven, angry, bitter, sad, delicate, fierce and sometimes just tired. And I love them for exactly the same reasons.

Maybe that’s enough.