I am not your average sorority girl. Yes, I am blonde, and yes, I suppose some might call me perky, but for the most part, I am not your quintessential, stereotypical sorority girl. I do not look forward to recruitment; in fact, I hate it. I can’t say anyone would enjoy standing around in the blazing heat in heels, making faux small talk with girls you don’t know as your thighs sweat and chafe and your wanded hair falls apart faster than a burrito. I love my big, but only because our friendship extends far and beyond the realm of our sorority. I don’t even call her my big because it feels to me that I am making a dig at her stature or weight, which are both completely normal. I throw what I know, but it’s usually a joke or I’m somewhat inebriated and think I’m hilarious. I’m not saying I hate my sorority or anything along those lines. I joined for the sisterhood and relationships I would forge which, I successfully did. I’m just saying that when you meet me, you don’t peg me for a sorority girl. I’m a bit too mean, a bit too rough, and a bit too sarcastic to qualify as Susie Sorority. I would rather wear my ratty old Pierce the Veil t-shirt from my sophomore year of high school than a Lilly Pulitzer dress. Yet somehow, all that small talk during those three grueling days of recruitment earned me a spot amongst the elite and here I am, two years later.

At the end of the last year, despite what some might call a reluctance to the sorority lifestyle, I decided to apply to live in my sorority house. I thought I was done with the dorm lifestyle and was somewhat desperate for a change of scenery. Moving off campus meant I could cook whatever I wanted, have my own closet, and have a car—so many appealing components to leaving that on-campus prison. On top of that, I would be living with 15 of my sorority sisters, which, again, seemed so appealing at the time. But, as anyone with any semblance of a brain would now, 15 girls under the same roof will never go smoothly.

There will never be a day with someone doesn’t have a tiff with a fellow housemate, whether it’s over a dirty plate festering in the sink or a pair of shoes left stray in the living room. You will grow to hate certain quirks and question eating habits. There will be days where you just can’t be within the confines of your house, because the risk of murder or arson is just too high and it’s too early for a felony on your record. Clothes will go missing, dishes (and spirits) will be broken, and you will find your patience tested just one too many times. But incredibly, despite the many, many times I thought that I would rent out a room at the Motel 6 for the remainder of the year just to have some peace and quiet, I came out relatively unscathed.

I can’t explain where it was along the way that I stopped complaining about the overflowing trash and just took it out myself or when I realized that a housemate coming home drunk and making a ruckus isn’t a cause for anarchy. Sure, even in the final weeks of my tenure in my sorority house, I experienced plenty of resentment and passive aggression, both on my part and the part of others. No one was innocent. Everyone had played both instigator and victim. But I realized, in leaving that house, that what has really stuck with me in the weeks since I moved out is not the frustration I felt when there was no parking in either our driveway or on the street, but the happiness I shared with my housemates in the moments spent laughing and living together.

I’ll never forget the time that the fire alarm went off at three in the morning, which was largely my fault, and I do realize at the time it was terrible, but I’d like to think we can laugh about it now. I’ll never forget the time an unnamed house member made a prank call to an old history teacher and lamented in a five-minute voicemail about their love life. I’ll never forget the time we impulsively ordered a large pizza at midnight on a random Sunday, just to choke down the stress of school with melt-y cheese—in fact, I’ll never forget all the times we ordered disgusting amounts of food, which I learned (the hard way) can be a real money suck and can be made a hell of a lot easier by just Tilting it (www.tilt.com). Rather than draining your grocery budget for the month and nagging your housemates to pay you back, just made a Tilt and Doordash that pho. I’ll never forget the time we ordered a bounce house to spice up a Saturday afternoon. I’ll never forget all the times we cried over boys, spooned on the couch, watched bad rom-coms, ate pints of Ben & Jerry’s, and reminded each other why we even joined a sorority in the first place.

Yes, there were a lot of bad times. A lot. You could but the tension with the knife, if the dueling parties didn’t stab each other first. But at the end of the day, even my non-sorority girl self felt that cheesy sisterly love they talk so much about during recruitment. I learned a lot about my fifteen housemates and I’m sure they learned a hell of a lot more than they wanted to about me. At the end of the day, no matter how many times I called the Santa Clara Bed and Breakfast to inquire about rates, I will forever cherish my memories of the Kappa Kastle.