For four years I had 60+ sisters. That number only grew every time we lost seniors and took in a new member class. For four years I paid dues every quarter, trying to make sure I had enough to pay my own way in the sorority. I spent hours upon hours at Pyramid dance practices trying to learn the dance moves my uncoordinated body refused to accept; it’s safe to say I was a slow (the slowest) learner. I even remember my freshman year being so sleep deprived I snuck into a closed down dressing room at popular young women’s clothing store that shall remain nameless which I used to work at to sleep in an empty stall for even just 10 minutes during a shift. But I stuck with it. I survived those 60+ girls’ tension, drama, and at times, princess attitudes. I survived the cattiness, and seemingly unfair treatment. I remember my sophomore year when I wasn’t allowed to pick up a little sis because I had failed to meet the grade requirement that previous spring quarter. I cried to my sisters on the CRS board (chapter relations and standards) begging them to let me pick up, swearing to our national adviser that if they let me pick up I would bring my grades back around 180°. They didn’t. I felt looked down upon, like all my devotion to our sisterhood and endless efforts meant nothing. We stepped on each other’s toes, bickered, and sometimes briefly lost touch with our closest friends in the sorority over Greek political disputes.
I don’t say that I’m a “survivor” of all that as if to say my sorority was some evil Mean Girls-come-to-life nightmare that I nearly escaped while barely clutching to fragments of my sanity. I say I “survived” as in I was able to look past the flaws and challenges that came with being a Greek woman and persevered when the going got tough. I “survived” those princess attitudes over what outfits we were wearing for recruitment, or childish disputes over what colors we were painting the new wooden letters because I know why we fought the way we did. Because we all had the sorority’s best interest in mind. We all wanted our chapter to be held to the highest standard, to emanate the love and benevolence we knew our chapter held within it. We faltered, sometimes failing to rise to the challenge but we also made great strides to better ourselves as young women, and as a chapter. It was never choosing our own preferences over another sister’s, but about believing we were individually choosing the best for our sisterhood as a whole. We stood united, though at times, at odds. And we always had an embrace ready for a sister even if we felt she had once turned her back on us. Because that is what family is. It’s fighting, sharing, crying, celebrating, hurting, encouraging, supporting, bonding, trusting, crafting, enduring, loving. Mahatma Gandhi said, “No one can hurt me without my permission.” And it’s true. As sisters we let those fights hurt us because we care so deeply about each other. Show me one family that never fights, and I’ll show you a flying monkey. We hurt the ones we love the most because in our heart of hearts, we trust them to always be there. A transcendent bond.
Let’s go back to my CRS/little sis anecdote. In that moment I felt like I was being stripped of privileges, or worse, denied a rite of passage. Not being able to pick up a little sis was the ultimate way to hurt me. So, why were they doing this? I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t being given a chance. But I see it now. It took me a few months to really get why they had done that to me. And there was a reason I didn’t see it then. I was looking at it the wrong way. It was never something they were doing to me, it was something they were doing for me, and more importantly, I had to face it was something I’d done to myself. I was the one who took an oath that I would uphold our sorority’s most important standard of the five: academic interest. I let my own grades slip and therefore forfeited my own privilege to pick up a little sis. And them holding me to that standard was something they were doing for me, to see that things won’t be handed to me in my life. I’d have to work for them. And at a time when I thought they were looking down on me, they were really just looking to help me back up.
So, I made sure I survived taking out letters every morning at 8am for an entire quarter because no one else wanted to sign up. I even survived the mind-numbing recruitment meetings, after all the PNMs (potential new members) had left, that seemed to take a century to conclude because I knew what it took to be a great sorority woman— leadership, responsibility, determination, accountability, fairness, perseverance, patience, among endless other qualities. I survived my sisters because I don’t know how I could have survived college without them.
“The ties that bind me to my sisters are not wrapped around our wrists, but rather fastened to our hearts.”
And in my case, those ties happen to be scarlet ribbons.