As my graduation date looms closer and closer, I am reflecting over my past four years at Umass Lowell. My freshman year, I joined a sorority, Alpha Omega. When I came to college, I never had plans of joining Greek Life, I didn’t think I was the sorority type of girl, although my friends will tell you otherwise. The very first night at school, a girl came into my room and asked me and my roommate if we wanted to go to a frat party. A bottle of UV blue later, and the rest is history. Those two girls, Kelly and Monique, have become my very best friends, and have been my roommates every year of college, except one brief stint junior year, it was a bad time for all of us. That first night, I met sisters from Alpha Omega and they truly became some of my best friends. I went out with them every weekend, had lunch with them during the week, and they truly cared about me as a person. And this was before I even joined the sorority.  Once I joined, Alpha Omega became my home away from home. They became my crazy new family.

Alpha Omega has been through a lot this past year. In January, we lost one of our sisters, Tiffany Obi, and there has been a hole in our chapter that has not been able to be filled. She was a bright star in our sisterhood and we miss her like crazy every day. Through the loss of Tiff, we have come closer together as a chapter and tried not to let a moment pass where we don’t tell each other how much we love each other. Tiffany truly embodied what it meant to be a good friend and sister, and even though she was younger than me, I always admired and looked up to her as an individual. Through the tragedy of losing Tiffany, I have truly realized how important Alpha Omega is to me and how important they have been in shaping who I have become today.

I’m not trying to push Greek Life on anyone, although if you know me you know how much I love Greek Life, especially at Umass Lowell, I’m trying to push you to find the group of people that you are able to be yourself around. AO, since day one, has allowed me to be unapologetically me. They have never once judged me in a menacing way, they have never once been bothered by who I am as a person, and they build me up instead of breaking me down. From small things like telling me they read my latest blog, or liking my Instagram posts, to the larger matters like letting me cry in their arms, or celebrating my biggest accomplishments with me. I’m extremely lucky to have an entire sorority of girls that will have my back no matter what, but even if you just have that one person that loves you just for you, that’s all you need. My sisters are my lifeline, they have been with me through thick and thin and will continue to be with me through thick and thin. My sisters are the kind of girls who would fight for you without an explanation, which debatably can get us in trouble, but at the end of the day, we have each other’s backs no matter what. We always joke around that the one rule of Umass Lowell Greek Life is that you don’t f**k with AO because we come for blood, and it’s one of my favorite things about my sisters.

So, to all of my sisters reading this, I love you all a whole lot. Thanks for always reading my blogs, or at least lying to me and telling me you read it, I know you might not always have time. Thanks for letting me be my loud, obnoxious, crazy self. And thanks for always being you.  Sorry for making some of you cry, because I know I did.

To my alumni, thanks for always helping us out, and keeping us afloat in the worst of times. Thank you for raising money for a scholarship for us. Thank you for coming to our events, and continuously showing us what it means to be a sister of Alpha Omega.

To my friends in Umass Lowell Greek life, thanks for loving AO despite some of our flaws (I think we’re perfect, but I might be biased), and thank you for supporting us through everything.

To my non greek life friends, thank you for not judging the fact that I’m in a sorority. Thanks for not being annoyed when I don’t stop talking about how much I’m obsessed with my sisters.

Thanks.