One of my earliest memories of my friend Abby involved a tiny graphic t with a popped-collared-polo underneath it. The polo was bright pink. The t-shirt was green and read 'Green-Eyed Goddess' on the front. She lived down the hall from me and Jess on the 4th floor of Beede Hall at USD. I was convinced she'd go Theta and we'd never talk again.
Somehow, we convinced her to go A Phi, and the three of us roomed together our sophomore year in the house. We got the 4-man room with only 3 people, which made people kind of hate us. That and the fact that we, along with Tess and Amanda, ran in a group and called ourselves the 'BC'... It was so hot in our sorority house that fall that we'd go out to my parent's minivan to put on makeup in the air conditioning after my ghetto Cavalier broke down in the middle of the street. I'm fairly sure either Abby and Tess or Jess pushed it out of the intersection that day.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
Before I became friends with Abby, I was friends with Pat.
I first met Pat as Jess and her roommate (and my dear friend) Ashley's bff from high school. I came to know him as the guy who could get us into Lambda and onto tables to scream 'B-A-N-A-N-A-S' to the beat of that horrible song. That house was so dirty your flip flops would stick to the carpet as you walked. Somewhere between shotgunning beers and drinking jungle juice in the basement, two of the most important people in my life caught each other's eyes.
Some portions of my college experience run together, but I believe it was our junior year that Pat, Chris, Nick and Robb got a house down the street from A Phi. We stormed out of it a few times, but it quickly became our second home.
Our junior year came and went, and when we didn't get enough of living together in the sorority and spending time with the boys down the street, we decided to live together in Sioux Falls for our last real summer. Oh, and Pat lived with us, too. He even puked up spaghettios in the hallway one night.
Our senior recruitment went by in a flash...
D-Days was a typical hot mess...
And by our last formal, it was finally setting in-- our lives would never be the same not living within 50 yards of all our closest friends.
I guess that's why Abby and Pat did the most sensible thing and moved in together.
No one likes to be apart from their best friend.
It's been three years since that photo was taken, and it doesn't feel like a single day has passed. Every time I talk to any of my friends from college, specifically those mentioned in this post, it is like we never skipped a beat. Reunions feel like old times. And it was this past October, in Vermillion, moments after Abby, Tess and I took this very picture, that Pat told me he was going to propose.
It's been a long 9 months keeping my mouth shut.
It's impossible to put into words how happy I am for the two of you. I know Robb feels the same way.
To two of the best friends a girl could ask for-- I love you both and CONGRATULATIONS. I promise I'll be done with the cheesy tributes within the next week. Ok, maybe it will take me a month or so.
It's times like this that I wish I lived closer to home so that I could pop a bottle of champagne with you.
Cheers to friendships that have lasted longer than trends, time zones, and just time in general. xoxo.
