(Disclaimer: There were no half-naked pillow fights.)

I’m not going to lie; I was extremely apprehensive to live in my sorority house for my sophomore year of college. However, I already had one awful roommate experience and had made it out alive, so I knew I could get through anything. When a random girl in the pledge class above me messaged me on Facebook and asked if I would be her roommate, I decided that I might as well give it a try. She ended up becoming one of my best friends.

When I first moved in, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to act. I was living in a huge, impeccably decorated house, with a chef. The girls on my floor had Pinterest perfect rooms and always appeared so put together. I knew all of them by name and knew the general area where they were from, but I was only close with a few. A feeling of awkwardness lingered at first. Most of us had only been in the sorority for a semester and hadn’t seen each other for the past four months. United by the unbearable heat and constant music blaring from frat houses and The O, all facades were melted away within the first seventy-two hours, and we became actual sisters.

Living in the house meant that on my best days and on my worst days I had people to support me. When my boyfriend and I broke up, the first people I turned to were the girls across the hall. My roommate even surprised me with my favorite ice cream and listened to my endless rants about how awful frat boys were (until we got back together) with total compassion. Although prior to this, I knew my sisters had my back, this event shook me to my core and proved how my sisters had truly become my family. They were the first friends that I have ever been able to open up to completely, and that may be due to the fact that we spent so much time together.

During meal times, there were always tables full of girls to eat meals with and complain about classes to. When I had papers to write, my roommate and I would travel through Columbus finding the best coffee shops to study in, and when I had a ton of studying, I could always count on my sisters being at the library late at night, so we could walk home together. There was not a single girl in that house that I couldn’t sit down with on our massive couch and confide in.

The weekends were by far the most fun times to live in the house. On a Thursday or Friday night, the excitement was palpable. Each room had different trap music, EDM, or top hits blasting to get them ~hyped~ for a night out. The upstairs smelled like forty-two different perfumes, and there was a heavy smog of hairspray that lingered. I could always count on my sisters to help me pick out the right lipstick or lend me an *edgy* bodysuit. Having people to always go out with that also lived in the same house was so convenient, not to mention safe, and I knew the night would inevitably end with a bunch of us in the hard study or dining room, snacking away and recalling the night’s events.

At times, it did get overwhelming living with so many girls, especially since I spent most of my free time with them as well. Like with any real family, it was okay to take time to be by myself. On days when I felt antisocial, I would eat a meal alone in my room or take a nap to decompress. Even though I had over forty housemates, there were still definitely opportunities to have some alone time. The best part was that when I decided to reemerge back into civilization, all of my best friends were right downstairs, and we could pick up right where we left off.

An imperative lesson that I learned in middle school also proved to be very important while living in the house; never talk bad about other people. As one can imagine, a close group of friends that live together chat all day long. Gossip was inevitable. I wish I could say that I was above this, but I wasn’t. While most gossip was innocent—people just want to be “in the know”—it always carried the potential to hurt the individual that it was about. I wouldn’t say that my sorority was more prone to gossip than any other organization, it just seemed to be exacerbated at times due to our close and constant proximity to each other. However, the longer we lived together, the more we learned to respect each other in ways such as this.

Living in my sorority house was a completely different experience than I thought it would be. The person I was last August is light-years behind who I am today, and the women that I lived with can be thanked for that. They pushed me to be a more compassionate, outgoing, and overall, just a better person. To anyone who is thinking about living in their sorority house, I would 100% recommend it. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience, and I miss it every day.