“Maybe the truth is, there’s a little bit of loser in all of us. Being happy isn’t having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it’s about stringing together all the little things – like riddles, soggy french fries, and Crocs with socks.”
– The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, with help from Me
Dear, dear, Reader. Hello! It feels like ages since we last met, screen to screen. I apologise for my absence, as the world is becoming more impatient to be free of the need to spend hours at desks and cameras, I admit, so am I. As it happens, I took a summer-long vacation from practically everything and totally unplugged – literally and metaphorically – and am now in the midst of the new school year… perhaps not ready for what is to come, but certainly interested. Engaged. Open. And truly, Reader, after the intense year I have had, for what more could I ask?
Reader, I have mentioned before that last school year was a trying time for me, but I do not believe I have been fully transparent as to what extent I was struggling. I prefer to keep the details surrounding my experience private, but I hold no qualms in stating frankly that I felt exceptionally low – very little seemed to be working in my favor, and nearly every step forward felt akin to a slow trudge up a muddy mountainside. It has been, in short, a rather difficult time as of late.
Just a few weeks ago, I was dreading the return to school. I have always been one to feel a dull pain in my chest at the end of August, a routine sentiment reanimated like clockwork in the final weeks of the summer holiday, and I attribute this yearly sadness to the fact that I am what some might call a “homebody”. As you well know, Reader, I am a middle child – sister to my two best friends and daughter to two wonderful parents. I was not, I will admit, anxious to leave my family and run back into the fray of what I had experienced the year before. And thus, my outlook regarding the start of school was dismal and one of total despair.
For the longest time, dear Reader, I have both craved and rejected what I perceived to be an abundance of silly frivolity that constitutes what I shall henceforth refer to as, “sorority culture”. I looked at pictures of beautiful young women, glitter covering their lips and eyes, hair painted neon colors, screaming and crying and smiling over their apparent sisterhood. I have clicked through videos of such women running across busy streets in the black of night, shuffling over asphalt in their dingy slippers as they clutch expensive heels and shriek with laughter. I have seen these homages to various Greek organizations, and I have felt opposing reactions: on the one hand, I have found the entire scheme to feel rather shallow and lacking in authenticity. I have wondered what it is about late-night escapes from giant parties that would entice a high school senior to welcome judgement from groups around which there is a great stigma, these cohorts of women which are critiqued often for upholding superficial, homogenous values.
And on the other hand, I have felt a deep sense of being without. I have met women – women who are unparalleled in their kindness, equity, work ethics, and talents – who loved their sororities in college, and are proud to call their respective houses a home. I have met women who are deeply passionate about the philanthropic work chartered by their houses, and I have met Greek women who are intelligent, open-minded, and of beautiful hearts; women who are as shallow as the sea, and ardently in love with their sisterhoods.
I pledged Chi Omega last fall, dear Reader, because I knew I wanted a taste of the frivolity, and I knew I was not going to play by an outdated rule book – I wanted sisterhood and silliness, in a loving, supportive manner. My expectations were low, I will admit, and I allowed my haughty judgements to jade my perspective on all that a sorority could be. But a year went by and I went home for the summer having participated in very few of the experiences normally accumulated by those in a sorority – I had attended no events, met but a handful of women, and knew of no secret rituals (this was the greatest disappointment of all, dear Reader, that I was completely in the dark as to the confidential ceremonies and rites of passage of Chi Omega women. I had heard rumours, you understand, but had undergone nothing remotely thrilling, a fact I was rather upset to report). That my first-year experience in a sorority was lackluster is not something to be held against any one person, but to be considered as yet another casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic – the leaders of my chapter tried their best to make the year engaging and fun, and so it was, but for a freshman girl stuck in her dorm room, there is only so much a ZOOM call can accomplish. And so at the end of the year I added my sorority to the frightfully long list of things about which I was unsure.
And then came August. I moved back to the town in which I attend university – setting up residence in an apartment this go-around, with two of my most darling friends as roommates, thank goodness! – and prepared to reenter the year as if preparing for battle.
I am nothing if not dramatic, dear Reader.
The week before school began was Rally Week for my sorority – and for those who are unaware, Rally Week is an entire week devoted solely to preparing chapter members for Sorority Recruitment. We learn chants, songs, and all sorts of delicious secrets (finally!) which I am loath to disclose here.
Dear Reader, Rally Week may very well have saved me.
I found myself immediately surrounded by interesting, kind, funny, diverse women who welcomed me into their midst without a second thought, without hesitation. I had been so fearful of my return to university, but something about these women eased that pain. I was excited to wake up in the morning and go see them, even if the days were long and our throats hurt from screaming ridiculous chants. I found that my heart seemed to relax when I was around them, that something deep within me seemed to click.
The hole in my heart healed. The gnawing feeling in my stomach subsided. The rock in my throat dissolved. The women I met in Chi Omega didn’t take away my anxieties, for no one has the power to erase a person’s pain, but altogether their presence began to resemble a home.
It was the weekend of recruitment that I realised everything may truly be ok. We were exhausted, all of us, having slept little for the past week and even less that weekend. But there was joy. There was joy in the cold breakfast tacos we were given that first morning as we whispered over how nervous we were to finally talk to the girls. There was joy in wearing pajamas and robes and lounging on the floor of a hotel ballroom at two in the morning, laptops dying, stamina long since having passed. There was joy in running across the street to Target in the rain to buy chocolate covered pomegranates and a five dollar candle, neither of which anyone needed.
It was post-Target trip, as I lay on the dirty carpet of our chapter’s room, wrapped in a cardigan and munching on the soggy fries that had been provided as a sort of dinner, reading riddles to two of my friends and being totally stumped by every problem we tried to solve, that I realised my heart was full. It was very full, and I had not felt quite so full in rather a long time.
Already this year, I have had the moments of glitter, and neon hairspray, and running across streets in the dark. And those instances were very fun, and I will remember them very fondly for years to come. But in just a few weeks, I have come to know a sisterhood that is beautiful, and strong, and profound, and already it means the world to me, because it has so drastically helped reshape my world.
The women of Chi Omega did not snap their fingers and magically perfect my collegiate experience, nor do the rest of my four years ride solely on my relationships to these women. To expect such would be utterly outrageous. But I am learning to accept the good and walk through the bad, and the women I have met in this organization are certainly a part of the good.
Lying on that floor, mouth full of unsavory french fries, Crocs and socks adorned with pride, telling riddles from various (probably unsafe) websites, I found sisterhood. As sisterhood is a riddle of its own – it is no definite entity, nor does it take any one shape – I can not speak to how its influence will impact my life in the coming days, weeks, or years. All I know for certain is I am grateful for its presence, and for the women in whom I have found a home. I hope, no matter where you are in life, dear Reader, and whether or not it is sisterhood in particular you seek, that you are able to find that which makes up its essence – a place to call home.
Love,
Lettie Anne