Prepare Yourself... It's a Sappy One

So… it’s 10:30PM PST and the Telethon has been on the air for 5 hours. I will be on the overnight shift, my favorite shift, tonight. The best shift! All the best, craziest performers come on during the overnight. Plus everyone is really tired and start getting really wacky. (Tune in to the blog a bit later to read the details.) So I will go down to sit in the production truck from 1P to 9AM for my shift. So I have some time to kill until my shift starts.

One of the reasons I love working on Telethon so much is because I get the chance to see so many people I love who used to be a part of my day to day life in Los Angeles. There are so many people on this show who are important to me, who I’ve known for years, who are family and I only see them for these two weeks. Then there are other people who, although I used to only see them on a few shows a year, I have missed and I love catching up.

But I think the best part of the show for me is when, on the last day, my closest friend from LA comes to town. Alli comes to Vegas on show day just to work a few hours, usually the overnight. The telethon is a family business in her family and she’s worked on this show for years. Since her shift starts tonight at 2AM and I’m not on until 1AM, we got a rare chance to do what we always did best… go out to dinner and gab.

Back in my LA days, it was a rare week where Al and I didn’t see each other at least once a week for dinner (when we weren’t on some horrible show.) We certainly talked many times a week and complained about work and the people we worked with and for. But since I left, we haven’t been able to stay in touch as much as I’m sure either of us would like. She got married and had a little girl and like a million animals living in her home. I, as you know, have been jumping from job to job and making a life for myself in NC. Between our crazy schedules and the time change, it’s hard to find the time to catch up. I would say we really only get the chance to sit down on the phone and really talk about three times a year.

Despite that, every year when I see her at Telethon, even though we usually only have a few hours to spend together at most, and there is a live 20 hour show going on at the same time, for me, it’s as though I just saw her yesterday. We sat at dinner tonight for a few hours and got really annoyed that the waitress kept showing up and interrupting our conversation. And there were no lulls. And there was no awkwardness. And no sense of having less in common now since we don’t have the work people to bitch about any more. I filled her in on my life, she filled me in on hers. We gossiped, we reminisced… and the time flew.

So it made me think about how incredible and rare friendships like this one are. Between Alli and I, as is the case with my girls in Charlotte, there is no sense of competition. There’s no snarkiness (well at least-- not directed at each other… everyone else is fair game.) There’s no need to prove how happy or successful we are. Or to lie to save face. There is support. There is genuine affection. And there is the sense that we are really rooting for one another, really wanting the other to find what they are looking for, regardless of the state of our own lives.

I wish I could say that all my friendships were like this one. I certainly have girl friends whom, I admit, I want to get what they want… as long as I either don’t want or already have it. They are the ones I don’t necessarily tell if I am worried about my future and wondering if I will make it in this life I’m living. When I talk to those friends, everything is AWESOME! Couldn’t be AWESOMER! Rah rah and GO TEAM! When I talk to Al, things are good. But some things aren’t. And I’m happy. But not all the time. And what I get back from her in those moments of vulnerability, which I don’t allow many people to see (except, of course, when I publish it in my blog) is not a feeling of pity or even sympathy. Not a sense of, ‘Thank god that’s not me…’ What I get is a sense of empathy. A feeling that, for the moment, she’s going through the bad stuff with me. And on the flip side, celebrating the good stuff with me.

When you have this kind of friendship, and I am lucky enough to have a few of these, it seems not quite worthwhile to go through the motions with anything less. Last year, when I got home from seeing all these people I love so much, I reevaluated some friendships and decided to let one go. Because as much as I wanted to have someone to go to the movies with and go out to dinner with when I’m bored… when compared to a real friendship like this one, it seemed so empty. And not really worthwhile for either of us.

As a single woman in her 30’s, family, friends and dog (yay Richie) are everything. I know there are few people out there with families they actually enjoy like I do who support them the way mine does. And few who have real, honest-to-God friendships like this one. And even fewer who have both (and also a very cute dog who follows them everywhere.)

I get all three. On both coasts. It’s good to be me…