If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band

Well it's official, we broke up. Melissa and I that is.
After college I got an internship at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, which means I was going to be moving. At the same time, Melissa (my greatest friend from high school) was starting school at UW-M, so we decided to try living together. We looked and looked at apartments (yes with our moms!) and found a cute little apartment on the 3rd floor in Shorewood. It had "character".

We had a nice man as a landlord who we asked "If you had daughters our age, would you feel they were safe living there?". I guess it was obvious we were a little nervous living in Milwaukee. But we had each other. Who knew that the church across the street would be where Andy and I got married? We were close to the lake, within walking distance to the Shorewood Library and could use shopping carts to get us home on late nights at the Shorewood Pub. We also had a foreign man who lived below us who we could never really "figure out", neighbor girls that never talked to us, we plastered greeting cards to our walls and had our parents over for a lasagna dinner in our dinning room (as well as many many games of presidents and a-hole, beer pong, golf, hockey etc).

When we moved out, we stayed together! We moved to what I would call a "box apartment".

That first night we lived there we celebrated with some of our friends out some bars close by (which we then started visiting regularly-so close!) and Andy and I got lost walking home since we didn't know our neighborhood well enough. Melissa to the rescue-came to pick us up! This is also where we bought our first dog together, Bailee. What an adventure she was! We had a neighbor below us that didn't like when we did taebo or exercise on our elliptical, much less even turn the tv on! I can't even start to describe the number of adventures we had at this place or count the number of nights we ate popcorn and watched tv together. This was the apartment that I lived in when Andy and I got engaged and where Melissa helped me plan the big day.
From here, we needed to part ways. Andy just didn't agree with having Gerk live with us after we got married. Why not? She would keep me busy and listen to me complain! But we just couldn't fully part, so we moved out to Greenfield and both got an apartment in the same complex....this was the beginning of us "breaking up". We lived close enough to walk barefoot to each others apartment, but not in the same building. We also were within walking distance to the 1st Choice (but not quite close enough to walk home from Club Paragon in our Halloween Costumes). It was hard, but necessary when you move on with your life. From there, Andy and I bought a house and Melissa made other changes in her life that took her out of Milwaukee and much further away from me. She was ready to move on too, and got engaged and married our great friend Joey!
This is getting long and I didn't even start talking about our high school and Pizza Hut memories yet! Don't worry, I won't bore everyone with THOSE memories, but I have always been a firm believer that when you go off to college after high school, you should not follow your best friend, nor should you try to "room" with a friend in the dorms that first year. I feel as if it may not work out and you may lose that great friend in the end. I also think that often times it causes you to not branch out and meet new people as you have this friend to sort of cling to in situations where you are uncomfortable. When we graduated, I was the first friend off to college-UW-Stout. I left early to play soccer and it was over 4 hours away and I had no car to come back for a visit. Melissa went off to UW-Oshkosh to create her own memories. We still saw each other on holiday breaks and summers (even though my parents moved away from Sheboygan) and therefore moving in with each other was a little scary for both of us. But, (for me anyways) it worked out great and even though I can't get those years back (no matter how bad I want to or how hard I try), I remember them well with a huge smile on my face.

So where is this going you may ask? Why the break up mentioned at the beginning of this post? Well, since Melissa married an Army Man...she now gets to go on adventures with him. I say gets to go on adventures because of how well Melissa has accepted the lack of choice in all the moves ahead-she looks at it as an adventure with her husband. It is hard to just pack up and go where you are told whenever they tell you to. Waiting for information on where your life will go next is tough and I give Melissa all the credit in the world for doing this with such grace. But, on the other hand, she totally wins out because she married such a great man. Joey has been a great friend to me for years and years...and I won't even get into all the memories except to just make note that I did teach Joey how to fish on North Twin in a small tin boat with a couple of beers ;). SOOOOO they are on the road...on the way to Texas to live for a few months, with their new dog Duke. After that, maybe Korea? We don't know, but I do know that it may be a very long while before I see them again and that is hard for me. I wish them the BEST of luck on all their moves and adventures. I hope nobody replaces me in their lives, but I wish them many happy times, lots of new friends and happiness together as a family with Biff and Duke.
Do I miss Melissa? Just about every darn day! How could I not-she is just this amazing girl that always totally understood me for me. Love you GERK!