In my last blog, I mentioned that I had recently rekindled a relationship with a friend of mine by the name of Melzy. My aim was to write just one paragraph about her and our friendship, prior to when we lost touch for a couple of years. One paragraph was not possible, so I decided to dedicate this entire blog post to her.
The best friend I have ever had in my life. I have known Melzy since I was in grade 6 (1999). I remember her from primary school as this shy, quiet little girl, a much different version of the Melzy of today! I used to volunteer for the local CFA Junior Brigade, and her mum was one of our supervisors. Given this, Melzy was often at the station with her mum. Over the next few years, when we were both attending the same high school, our friendship grew. We participated in Extra Curriculum activities together such as participating in the 2003 Rock Eistedfodd Challenge at (previously known as) Vodafone Arena in Melbourne, in front of a crowd of roughly 10,000 people, and in our school's musical "Charades". We both also, were in the school's Vocal group, and would preform together on a regular basis. We would do all the usual teenage things, have our sleepovers where we would swap clothes, stories about boys etc. The stories I could tell you about us, well you would need a few spare hours to read it all! Some of my most favourtie memories from our teenage years, consist of mud puddles, changing of song lyrics, sitting on car port roofs, and not caring what anyone thought of us.
I always, and by always I mean on a weekly basis, I get this one song that Melzy changed the words to, stuck in my head. The song was 'Bad Boy for Life' by P. Diddy. The actual lyrics to the song are "We ain't, go-in nowhere, we ain't, goin nowhere, we can't be stopped now, cause this bad boy for life." Melzy changed the words, to suit us at the time (after having a mud fight in a puddle next to a bus stop on the main street of Buninyong) to, "We ain't go-in nowhere, we ain't go-in nowhere, we can't be stopped now, we are retards for life." That song still makes me laugh!
Now that particular mud fight of ours was not a once off! Whilst on a camping trip with my family to Picola on the Murray River one Easter, Melzy and I decided after being bored for a good couple hours, that we were going to go for a walk through the Barmah State Forest, where we were camping, to explore our surroundings. After about an hour and a half, we returned to our campsite, covered from head to toe, in the thickest mud we could find! It was then that we realized we were in the middle of the bush, with no hot shower! That river was very bloody cold I can tell you that much! Fast forward about 2 years. We decided to go to the Lake Bolac BNS Ball in 2006 with a few of my friends. During this time, Victoria was experiencing a very bad drought, and all of the lakes had dried up. Lake Bolac consisted of a puddle rounded by kilometers of wet dark mud. Being bored once again, we thought it would be entertaining to mud wrestle in the remains of the lake. It was only after about 5 minutes of pushing each other over face first, that we realized we had a crowd of about 30 people watching us from the lake foreshore. That did not stop our fun. But after about the 10th "Take your clothes off" comment from some drunker wank, we decided to call it a day. We again, realized that we were camping, and again had no hot shower! We washed off what mud we could, and proceeded into the BNS Ball with mud everywhere still!
Our drunken antics were enough to get us killed! The amount of stupidly reckless things we would participate in were amazing! I remember one night in particular. It was a typical Saturday night in the life of Kimmi and Melzy. We were in the middle of Ballarat with all of the teenagers and their hotted up cars. Our mate Brad was the first one out of all of us to get his licence, and we were forever where he was. We were bored and were looking for some fun, so 7 of us piled into Brad's old Commodore (four in the back, me in the front seat and Melzy sitting on the floor at my feet). Brad decided he wanted to do some rally driving through the Canadian State Forest at about 2AM with no headlights on. Now Brad had driven this track thousands of times and could most likely drive it with his eyes closed. So here we were, overloaded, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the bush driving at about 160KPH with no headlights. Now I trusted Brad with my life while in the car with him, obviously if I was prepared to be a front seat passenger while he did this, but this was a little bit too much for me. I was scared out of my brains and decided it was acceptable to scream haha. Well as Melzy was sitting at my feet, she could not see where we were or that Brad had no lights on. She knew that I trusted Brad in the car, so if I was screaming, she knew something crazy was happening. That in itself was enough for her to cut the circulation to my legs by hugging them so tight! Obviously, nothing bad happened to us! Another time, was were Brad had came into a street a bit too quick, resulting in the car doing a complete 360. During this, we were both screaming! When we came to a stop, there was complete silence for about 20 seconds, followed by Melzy saying at the top of her lungs, "Let's do that again!"
The summer of 2004-05 was one of the best I have had. My parent's were away for all but about 4 days of that summer, so it was fairly safe to say that my place became the party central of Buninyong. Every Friday and Saturday night my house would be packed to the rafters of drunken teenagers, doing what they do best. Melzy pretty much became part of the furniture of my house that summer. During the day, while staying at home was a lame option, we would sunbake at the skate park or sit on top of my carport, drinking cruiser's and throwing water bombs at whoever came our way. Or we would push our mates around in garbage bins down the main street! It also, was a regular occurrance to see Melzy and myself sitting in front of the local milk bar in our PJ's, hungover, with our greasy food, OJ and smokes. We would stay there a good hour some days. Some of the best memories I have are from that summer.
The following year, I had Master Bumblebee. So the antics of the previous summer were non existent. None the less, Melzy was still there. Now she was a 17 year old, with no responsibilities unlike myself, yet she still spend most of her time with me. That's a true friend. Whilst I was pregnant with Master Bumblebee, I turned 18. Melzy made damn sure that I had a great 18th birthday even though I was the only sober person at my party. I recently looked back at my 18th birthday key, and could do nothing but laugh at the random things she had written in there. Things like 'Everyone has AIDS!'. That word pretty much sums up Melzy, random!
Exactly 6 months after my 18th birthday, we celebrated Melzy's 18th birthday. You see, we are exactly to the day 6 months apart in age. We are both born on the 17th of the month. Now what else is there to do in Ballarat on your 18th, apart from getting ridiculously drunk! And that we did! We shared a dinner with Melzy's family, and then we both proceeded to explore the nightlife of Ballarat. Now as I was pregnant when I turned 18, I never really went out. Melzy was the first one of my friends to turn 18 after me. We were both in unfamiliar territory. We started out at a place called Club Q. It was a pool hall, and we soon became friends the young guy behind the bar. He used to make us our favorite shots, and every time we went out after that night, that was a our first stop. Now we had been at Club Q for quiet some time, having shots and playing pool. We decided it was time to move onto the next watering hole. We were headed for a nightclub that is no longer open, called 21 Arms. This club was located at 21 Armstrong Street, hence the name. Now from Club Q to 21 Arms, it was about a 10 minute walk. It took us almost 50 minutes to get there! Only because we had to stop at every second doorway up Sturt Street so that Melzy could throw up! At this time, Melzy had a huge crush on this kid named Mick. As Melzy was wasted, she started singing at the top of her lungs, "Oh Mickey you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey!" Just as she stopped singing, who other then Mick came walking straight for us! I have never seen Melzy's face go so red in my life! After that, we finally made it 21 Arms and we had a blast for the rest of our night.
Fast forward 2 more years, and Melzy had come a far way since her spewing escapades of her 18th, as Melzy was going to become a mum herself. Melzy had met a kid by the name of Corey at a club in Melbourne, and they had been pretty much inseparable ever since. Christmas of 2008, I received a phone call from Melzy to tell me that Corey had proposed to her, and that she was getting married! She was so happy.
On February 13th 2009, Melzy gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Summer. She was, and still is, a spitting image of her mum as a baby. Both Melzy and Corey were ecstatic at the new member of their family. I could tell that they were going to be awesome parents.
Melzy and I stopped talking not long after this part of our lives. It was a few months after Melzy's 21st birthday. What happened here is a long and personal story, so I won't go into details of what happened. We did not speak to each other again for 2 and a half years. Melzy's little girl is now one week off turning 3. I have not only missed out on more then 2 years of my best friends life, I have also missed out on Summer. I wasn't there when she learnt to crawl, when she got her first tooth, when she learnt how to walk, her first word, her first birthday. All of these massive milestones, gone. She is still the most gorgeous little thing, and she is still the spitting image of her mum. Melzy is the best mum, as I knew from the day Summer was born, that she would be.
Now not only does Melzy and Corey celebrate their daughter's 3rd birthday this year, they are also getting married in March. I cannot believe Melzy is getting married!!! I remember all those years ago, I lost track of the amount of times I heard Melzy say we was NEVER going to get married. Corey said something to me a week or so ago, that made me realize that he loves her more then anyone else in this world, "I can't believe I'm getting married in 5 weeks. I couldn't be happier, because Melzy is my best mate". I will be standing there, proud as anything when she marries Corey. This day, will be one that I will remember, and smile about for years and years to come.
So as you can see, Melzy and I have been to the end of the earth and back for each other and with each other. I am so fortunate to have her back in my life, and I will never let another day go by where I let my selfish actions impact that. Here's to many more years of friendship, many more happy memories, and many more milestones shared.
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