Dear Graduating Sorority Senior,

In just a few short weeks you will wake up (uncomfortably hungover), put on your makeup, do your hair, mess up your hair trying to put on your graduation cap, and drape your sorority stole over your shoulders to add the final touch to your graduation gown. You have been avoiding that pit in your stomach since the beginning of the semester when everyone started coming up to you saying, "Can you believe you're a senior in college?"

You've spent countless hours at the dinner table with your family grilling you with questions about what you're going to do with your life after graduation. Maybe you know and maybe you don't, but the questions still get you irritated. You've dreaded saying your goodbyes and now to top it all off you have to sit through a ceremony as a bunch of scholarly individuals bark inspirational speeches at you trying to encourage your post-grad life. As you sit in that uncomfortable plastic chair for the next several hours, all you find yourself thinking about it that stole hanging around your neck proudly showing everyone watching you your affiliation with your sorority.

To other people we come off as just a bunch of girls who like Lily Pulitzer way too much, pay for their friends, and drink way too much, but you know more than anyone that that could not be farther from the truth. For the past several months I have watched your sadness and nervousness about leaving the sorority behind grow more and more each day. You've spent the past four years of your life meeting your best friends, growing as a professional after holding countless positions, and doing your absolute best to pass your knowledge down before you leave for good.

Trust me, although we're not the ones entering the professional world just yet, as nervous as you are to leave and start a career we are just as nervous knowing we have to fill in your footsteps when you're gone. We trusted you to teach us, now trust us to use what you've taught us after you're gone. On behalf of a younger sister, here are a few things I have to thank you for.

Thank you for recruiting me. You believed in me even when I was the clueless freshman who knew nothing about what college could really be.

Thank you for teaching me how to have fun. Without your encouragement, I would still be the girl staying in on a Friday night with food and my Netflix account.

Thank you for teaching me respect. Respect is given where respect is earned.

Thank you for believing in me. Without your guidance and encouragement, I never would have learned what I truly am capable of.

Thank you for showing me that a sorority is more than just new friends, parties, and boys. The position I am holding or am going to hold will one day be written into my resume.

Thank you for taking care of me. We all have one too many nights when we think we are invincible to the effects of partying.

Thank you for encouraging me. Even when it didn't work out in my favor, you were still there to tell me to keep going.

Most importantly,

Thank you for being sisters of our sorority.

Sincerely,

A Younger Sorority Sister