Making friends for life- Part 4

Living together opened Leigh and I both up to new worlds. She was friends with a lot of the same girls from grade school that also lived in her neighborhood. I had my fair share of grade school pals as well. Then we both met new people in junior high and high school to add to the mix. I will never forget when Leigh met Joanne. Joanne was from Louisville (Lul-vul, if you are a native) and had just moved into the neighborhood. She had this ridiculous accent that Leigh was just drawn to. Joanne had a tough childhood and I know Leigh could sense that. It was another time that she reached out to someone with a completely different background from hers and ended up with a lifelong best friend. Meeting Joanne led to other new friends and before we knew it we were traveling in 6 or 8 different circles of people. Between grade school, junior high and high school, with 2 girls, there were a lot of friends over all of the time. I would hang out with Leigh and her friends and she would hang out with me, Dawn, Bri and Manda (to name a few).

Joanne, Leigh and Me

We definitely had our stupid girly quarrels. We would be very open with each other when we did not like someone but we always tolerated them for the sake of each other. We were like sisters in the sense that we could plot against the parental units. I don’t mean this in a bad way but I remember Jenny Higgins having a party that we knew the Gramlich’s would never allow us to attend so we came up with a huge outlandish story. I don’t remember how or why but Robin did eventually learn the truth (I think we broke the curfew we worked so hard to extend and then Leigh broke under pressure) and I am pretty sure that was the only time we were grounded.

During the time we lived together we also had Drama 4 together. One of my best friends, Dawn, was in the class as well. Our teacher called home on us because we were a distraction to others. He thought it was an issue that we lived together and had a class together. Despite the distractions, we both aced the class and solidified our love of theatre together.

Joanne, Heather, Me and Leigh after our production of Dark of the Moon