Growing up, I was a pool rat. I was the little kid who ran around her community pool from open to close, attempting to make friends with the lifeguards and sneak as many quarters from my mom’s purse to purchase an egg custard snowball from the snack bar.
And while I didn’t have much luck becoming best friends with the teenage lifeguards as a nine-year-old, I managed to meet and reconnect with a group of girls I still rely on to this day.
Even when Labor Day came and the pool closed its gates, we always found ways to be with one another: attending each other’s school dances, driving for ice cream and begging for sleepovers. It was all clockwork until COVID-19 came and I moved away.
While I relocated only a half hour away, it felt like hours. I couldn’t just ask my mom to drive me over with the drop of a hat. And I definitely couldn’t due to quarantine. Everything was different and I hated it.
Yet, we persevered. Weekly group FaceTime calls became mandatory. My one friend Cecilie and I wrote letters to each other every week.
When I stepped on campus at Florida Southern College in 2021, I knew I wanted to find a carbon copy of the unbreakable bond I had back home. Going through sorority recruitment was the first step.
I did not know much about sorority life other than what I saw on the movie screen. However, being a freshman who made friends at FSC with juniors and seniors, Panhellenic was something I heard about frequently. I had no idea which chapter they belonged in, but I remember thinking to myself, ‘If I really like these girls, I’ll like their friends, too.’
And I more than liked their friends. I loved them. When I entered the Gamma Phi Beta room on night two, I knew I belonged there. Conversations with everyone I talked to were of such ease, and I found myself not being able to shut up about my friends from home. Though I was paranoid that I was talking too much about myself, they indulged in my passion for friendships and continued to ask questions about my hometown crew.
But after Bid Day, I was worried. I clung onto my senior friends at chapter, socials and other events. I became anxious that the chapter wouldn’t like the person they saw outside of recruitment, and I shut myself off from making relationships with my new sisters.
‘What happens when my older friends graduate at the end of the semester?’ I thought to myself. ‘Who will I have? What if I never find a group of friends that make me as happy as my ones at home?’
This negative mindset took me down a spiral. I continued to think this way until a message appeared in our GroupMe asking for new members to sign up to live in the chapter suites sophomore year. I took a deep breath, told myself to take a chance to find my home away from home and sign up.
Encouraging myself to step out of my comfort zone was the best decision I ever made. I lived with four other Gamma Phis: Aerial, Beatrice, Holly and Tanzy. We are still referred to as “Suite 110” and “The Pit,” with our friend Mickey as an honorary member. While we are all unable to live together again, it still feels like we do. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Because of those summers spent at my community pool with Bella, Cecilie, Claire and Grace, I knew what type of deep friendship I was searching for and found Aerial, Beatrice, Holly, Tanzy and Mickey. One day, I hope I can bring my sisters to my pool and show them the place where our friendship truly began.
