An open letter to my sweet god-sister, Katie.
Katie,
What an exciting adventure you are about to embark on!
I am sure that the past week has been filled with excitement. Packing up everything that you need to finally live away from home: shower shoes and xl-twin bedding; new framed photos of your family, friends and pets; your laptop and hundreds of dollars of text books. It doesn’t look like much, but that sterile, painted brick dorm room will soon feel like it’s yours. 14 years later, I still have a very particular fondness for my freshman dorm room, Sandoz 702.
Look up and down your hallway. Behind some of those doors may live some of your new best friends.
The university experience is going to be amazing for you, but I’m especially thrilled that you’ve made the choice to go through sorority recruitment. It’s been ten years since I last lived in my sorority house, but most days it feels like just yesterday.
Sure, the recruitment process feels a little like the “Bachelor” and it’s hard to know what to expect. It’s a whirlwind of small talk, house tours, skits, songs and chants that leads to making a forever decision to join a sisterhood. You find yourself contemplating which sorority colors or mascot appeals to you most.
It seems hard to believe right now, but within those short few days getting to know the chapters and their members, you’ll start to feel like one of those houses could be your home and those women within it, your sisters.
This house will have the living room where you huddle with your sisters to watch daytime soaps between classes or watch the news when tragedy strikes. It will have the dining room table where you study for your exam or order late-night pizza. It will have the bedroom where you stay up too late talking and swap the contents of your closet. It will have the hallway full of music as everyone gets ready to go out for the evening. If those walls could speak, they’d tell you that you have so much to look forward to.
Now that I live far from home, I appreciate my sisterhood even more than I thought that I would. My college friends are still my absolute best and no matter the time that goes between seeing each other, we easily fall back into our very comfortable groove of friendship. We celebrate each other when times are good and when times are bad, we wrap our arms around our sad sister, even from many miles away.
Sorority sisterhood doesn’t stop when you graduate either. I was ecstatic to find that my new colleague was also in my sorority. She’s a few years older and from a different school, but I knew there was a reason that we clicked.
Undoubtedly, someone will make a wise crack about having to pay for your friends. I can promise you, I’d pay ten times over for my girls.
College is awesome, Kate. You’re going to love it. My experience is a little dusty (cough, 10 years), but the love that I feel for my university and my sisterhood, is as strong as it ever was. I’m going to be thinking about you this week and waiting to see where you end up. Your future is so bright, I am so glad that I get to watch it unfold!
Love you!