I Almost Dropped from Sorority Rush, So Let Me Take This Moment to Thank God I Didn't

Tori Heck, Alpha Gamma Delta, gets real about the parts of recruitment that aren't always the best, but tells us why she's so glad she stuck it out.

"Growing up, I always pictured myself going Greek in college.

Senior year, me and my best friend spent days looking through older friends' sorority pictures, watching Bid Day videos, and creeping on every Chapter's Instagram.

As rush got closer, I had doubts. I wasn't sure I was cut out to be a "sorority girl". I had never been much of a girly girl and I really wasn't sure I could survive a week of early mornings, full faces of makeup, long days forcing conversations with strangers, and knowing through all of it that girls were choosing if they wanted to let me into their beloved homes.

I'll be the first to say it: sorority rush is a brutal process.

My heart was broken every morning as I opened my schedule to see that my favorite houses had dropped me. It hurt to compare my only half-full schedule with those around me who had been asked back to all of the "best of the best" houses. By midweek, all I wanted to do was drop. I just wanted out. I couldn't take another day of rejection, but I also couldn't picture my college life without a sorority. I had wanted this for so long, but by this point I was ready to throw it all away.

Rush was the worst week of my life. Hands down.

So why did I stay? Why did I get on the bus every day and head back to sweet Milledge Avenue, forcing a smile, afraid to get my hopes up only to be let down once again? Why did I wipe tears off my face, reapply my lip-gloss, and head into the next house, day after day?

The truth is, I don't know why. I don't know why I kept trudging along when my heart was begging me to stop. Something in me knew good would come of this. Some part of me knew I couldn't quit.

Let me skip to the good part: I'm sure as hell glad I didn't.

Everything changed when I got off the bus at my house. My beautiful White House with its perfectly kept lawn and Tiffany encrusted front doors. I was grabbed by a girl, who would later become my grand big. She wrapped me in a hug and I knew I was home. This isn't to say that every reservation I had about joi

ning a sorority fled as soon as I stepped onto the lawn, but as I followed my grand big through the house and up my stairs to meet the girl that would become my big, a feeling of relief came over me. This was it. I had done it. I was home.

Three and a half short months from now, I will move into that same beautiful house and make it my home for a year. So much has changed since August when I stepped onto that lawn. I gained a big who is the biggest blessing I ever could have asked for. Since the moment I met her, she has been a source of strength, protection, and comfort in the crazy world that is college. She is my fortress when I am weak, my inspiration when I am lacking, my best friend when I want to be silly, and everything in between.

I have made a group of amazing friends. The type I was worried I would never find. The type that make me want to plan my wedding, not because I've found the man of my dreams, but because I want to make all of them my bridesmaids -- immediately. The type that I can laugh with and cry with. The type that I can both study with and go out for drinks with. The type that will bask in the sun with me on my best days and will be the first to hold me crying on my worst.

I've made room for two hundred and some more sisters in my heart, from all walks of life, all parts of the country, with different passions, and different plans.

It was one of the harder decisions I've made to finish out that grueling week in August. To trust that there was a greater plan--that I would find my home and my people. I wasn't sure that this was for me, or that it would ever work out, but I kept my faith, and I thank the universe every day that I did."