Littles and Childbirth and STD (it’s clean, I promise)

I was awakened by loud music reverberating from my phone.

It was midnight and I, being an early riser and, therefore, a terrible college kid, was already dead asleep.

Groggy and confused, I rolled over and nearly fell out of bed, wondering why an alarm was going off while it was still dark outside and why it was on my phone when I only set alarms on my desk clock.

I had a vague sense that I was forgetting something.

I picked my phone up and swiped to make the annoying noise stop. Then I realized that it was a call and I had just answered it.

“Hello?” I murmured in a soft, sleepy voice.

“Hi!” an incredibly awake voice chirped. “Want to find out who your Littles are?”

Suddenly, I remembered. I had set my phone ring to the highest volume possible because tonight we found out who our Littles were.

Littles? I got more than one?

The rest is hysteria.

I mean, history.

Nah. I mean hysteria.

The rest of the week was a crafting frenzy. When I wasn’t working on something for the Littles, I was studying or working on our school newspaper. Meals were irregular. Sleep was a sweet dream.

Day Three of Big/Little week, I was initiated into the English honors society, Sigma Tau Delta (STD, for short. Apparently English nerds are terrible at stringing together Greek letters). I was given a certificate and a pin. (I get a kick out of telling people I’m wearing my STD pin.) After obligingly mingling for a few minutes, I power-walked to my dorm (in heels) and began frantically painting for one of my Little’s basket. She likes “Despicable Me,” so I decided to paint a minion with the words “one in a minion.” I grabbed a scrap piece of paper to see if I could even paint a decent minion. Thankfully, I could, and I managed to successfully deliver her present. As I cleaned up, I picked up the piece of paper to throw it away.

Then I realized that I had actually painted the back of my STD certificate. (Wow, that really is a horrible acronym.)

That about sums up my week. In a figurative and also very literal way.

I was sleep deprived, stressed, and my “To-Do List” kept growing longer while my time to accomplish items on said list kept shrinking. It was the craziest week of my life.

But when I look back on it, I don’t remember any of that.

I think of the notes my Littles wrote me, telling me how much they loved their gifts and how excited they were to meet me. I think of jumping out from behind one Little and hearing her shriek, “You tricked me!” Immediately followed by, “I wanted it to be you!” I think of dragging my Big and one Little backstage to surprise my other Little after her performance and being unceremoniously kicked out. And I think of standing in the lobby, holding her family shirt, when she walked out in the reception line. I think of how surprised she was when she realized what was going on and how another cast member had to tear her away from our first family gathering to thank the audience.

I never understood childbirth before – how a woman can undergo such intense pain and forget about it when she finally gets to hold her little one.

I get it now. At least a little bit.

I love my babies. And, given the choice, I would go through the entire, chaotic week for them all over again.

I would even paint a cartoon figure on the back of a certificate of high academic accomplishment. Or, if it came down to it, not be a part of STD at all.

You know what I mean.

Ohana means family. And I have the best family ever.

How I Found my Sorority Home

I didn’t realize that I was home. Until two fistfuls of shaving cream were dumped on my head.

I’ll get to that in a moment.

Moving to Union University, almost 900 miles away from my home in Florida, gave me what I wanted – a fresh start. An entirely new chapter of life, full of blank pages and endless possibilities.

I figured that one thing I should add to my new life was friends.

To that end, two of my roommates, who I met during freshman registration, convinced me to rush.

“We’ll do it together,” they bubbled. “It’ll be fun!”

Despite my suspicions about Greek life, I filled out the form for sorority recruitment, mentally replaying every moment (there were a lot of them) in the past year that I said I would never join a sorority.

My two roommates transferred to the University of Memphis before school started.

And I still wasn’t sure about the whole “sorority thing.” But I had absolutely nothing to lose. I figured this would give me a chance to meet people. If nothing else, it’d be an experience. That’s what college is for, right? To be stupid? To make mistakes? Someday, I’d reminisce about my dorky freshman days and laugh with highbrowed maturity about how I almost got sucked into the hard-partying, unendurably vapid world of sororities.

Instead, as I shuffled up and down Greek row in 4-inch heels, I found houses full of kind, welcoming girls. Girls who were held together with strong bonds of friendship. Girls with intelligence and ambition. Girls with welcoming smiles and contagious laughs. Some adorably goofy co-eds and some gently poised young ladies.

I can’t really remember why I was so skeptical of Greek life anymore. I guess that during rush, I had a revelation: stereotypes aren’t always true. What we expect isn’t always accurate. (Shocking, I know.)

But even after discovering that, I still wasn’t sure which sorority I wanted to invest the time and money into, if any of them. Among the muddle of Greek alphabet soup, no letters seemed to spell “home.”

Not until bid day.

After running to the house, taking (a rough estimate) 20 gazillion pictures, and casually getting to know each other, we played games with balloons filled with shaving cream, which (naturally) morphed into a shaving cream battle.

I was somewhat on the outskirts, amusedly watching my new sisters get covered with white foam, when someone came up behind me with hands full of shaving cream lathered my hair with it.

Shrieking, I whirled around to see a tall, blonde girl standing behind me, laughing.

Unless you’re a terrible, obnoxious person, you don’t play a prank on someone you don’t know. You do something like that to someone you have a relationship with. Someone you know will give you a hug and try to get you back.

As strange as it sounds (and is), when that shaving cream hit my head, I knew that I was a part of something bigger than myself, but something that would swallow who I am. I found friends I could be my nerdy, awkward self with. I found girls who would accept, encourage, and love me.

Some girls are smart. They figure out where they belong a lot sooner than I did. And stay much cleaner in the process.

But one thing you realize at college is that most of us don’t know where we’ll end up or even where we’re going. We take grasp at whatever chances are dangled in front of us, we offer people our hearts and cross our fingers, hoping that – maybe – they’ll like us, despite our quirks and insecurities.

I’m starting to think that may be how life goes.

Maybe we’re all looking for people who dump shaving cream on our heads.

I’m just thankful to have my sisters.

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