In spring of 2000, I was a newlywed with a brand new masters degree and a rewarding job at a liberal arts college. My husband and I were living just north of Chicago and waiting for the next part of our lives to begin. One day, my soon-to-be-law-school-graduate husband shared some news with me.
"I got the federal clerkship in Milwaukee!"
I'll never forget my reaction:
"Milwaukee? You mean, Wisconsin? People don't LIVE in Wisconsin. They just go there on the weekends in the summer!"
But alas, we were headed to Wisconsin temporarily. A few years at the most. His clerkship was for two years, and then we would move on to some fabulous place to settle down and live our lives. Some place warm.
But the clerkship extended to three years and by that time, we had our first child and the Wisconsin bar exam had been taken and passed. Before I knew it, 2004 was here and my husband was working at a Milwaukee law firm. We also had a mortgage and another baby on the way. Much to my surprise, our future was clear: we weren't stuck in Wisconsin, we had made the choice to live in Wisconsin.
Now, after nearly nine years of living north of the cheddar curtain (aka the Illinois/Wisconsin border), I embrace our decision to settle here and raise our children in suburban Milwaukee. We have made so many wonderful friends here -- both native Wisconsinites as well as other transplants. Most of the time, I really feel like I am home. But, at other moments, I still feel like an outsider observing some curious culture. I take mental notes on my anthropological observations and share stories with my friends and family still in Chicagoland.
I think it's about time that I finally record those observations so that my experience may be of help to other Chicagoans who travel I-94 north into America's Dairyland.
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