Dear Sisters,

This time of year, we’re all caught up in midterms. We’re all familiar with long nights at the library followed by long days at the library followed by long weekends…at the library, and there’s only one thought keeping us going.

It’s home.

Our best friends, our families. Everything we knew before we became students of higher education and had obligations and meetings. But then the moment arrives when we get to the end of our finals, and we go home and we sit down and get to have that first really nice home-cooked meal. The inevitable conversation with our families starts about how we’re doing, what we’re doing, and then, of course, there’s always the “Why is it that you are so busy that you can’t take time to call your parents/grandparents every once in a while?”

“What have you been up to this semester?”

That’s the question—the one that always makes me stop and wonder, what did I actually do the past two months of my life that flew by?

Well, there were the endless chapter meetings, the weekends spent with my sisters, the philanthropy events, the day-to-day shenanigans with my sisters, fulfilling my study hours... I guess I just never realized what an integral part Greek life is beginning to play for me.

We all know coming into it that it’s going to better you as a person—sure, that’s a given. You know that it’s going to structure you and help you branch out, that it’s going to give you a way to be involved and a way to better acquaint yourself with your peers and responsibility. I joke around about the amount of time I spend with my sisters, with my family and friends at home, but when I really stop to think about it, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

What I didn’t know coming into Zeta Tau Alpha was how consuming it would become. Nobody told me that joining a sorority was integrating myself into a high-paced, driven and incredibly unique lifestyle. It isn’t just a social organization, for it is ever-present in the person that I am. It is because of the women that I pledged myself with that I continue to strive for excellence—to challenge myself to be the woman that I want to be. This is something I could never explain to my friends and family back home—even my fellow peers who are a part of the Greek community because the values and morals I exude come from my sisters, my chapter.

So to you, my sisters—thank you.

You are, in every sense of the word, my family. We borrow each others' clothes, we gossip, we spend hours reassuring each other's life decisions, we are each other’s “go to” at all times. You are always there for me, just like I am always there for you.

And I love us for all the laughs, for the sarcastic moments and the secrets we share that never stay between just two people—but that’s the way it goes when you have sisters. It’s amazing how much can stay between an entire sorority of women, but we manage to do it anyway.

I love us for pushing each other towards our goals, for sending those encouraging text messages to one another, for hashtagging and Instagramming where it is deserved, and for always being someone's woman crush Wednesday.

When I think about this semester, my pledge class, the ones before it and all the ones to come, I am in awe of how much I have changed as a person because of you. While there are many moments I have found myself wondering why I needed a sisterhood, it is in my darkest hour, crying loudly in my bedroom alone, that I am reminded of why I needed it and what it really means.

And it's true. There’s a lot of us. We may not all be the best of friends and some of us may not even know each other at all, but I believe we are all connected in a way I will never have with anyone else for as long as I live. Being bound by ritual is something far bigger than just being a part of our organization together—it is what binds all of us, and so I am bound to all of you. I know that no matter where I am in my lifetime, I can always call any one of you and know I have a shoulder to cry on, a girl to laugh out loud with and a sister to love and care about me the way that we promised we would.

I can’t thank you enough for everything you are and continue to be for me. You have changed my life, and I only hope that I can do the same for you. I love you all because you know what kind of ship never sinks?

Friendship.