By Theresa Doolittle
The first four months of 2019 were riddled with lasts. The previous three years, it seemed, had passed in a dizzying blur, and all of a sudden we stood six feet from the finish line, looking back. It was the home stretch, the long goodbye, the endless celebration. The semester in which nothing mattered anymore, except for the things that matter so incredibly much. The lasts grew less significant as April drew nearer: the last post-class beers, the last first warm Saturday, the last trip to Trader Joe’s to fill the fridge in my last college apartment. The last night as undergrads, sitting on our front porch with a bottle of wine, and watching the streets slowly empty until we were the last ones left.
I have a hard time writing about my sorority because there’s honestly no way to do it without sounding incredibly sappy, or incredibly dismissive. I’ll spare you my best attempt because even that isn’t very good; if you get it, you get it, and if you don’t, that’s fine too. Sororities are a weird thing, and they’re not for everyone—I know this. But I also know that mine was— and in lots of ways, still is— so incredibly important to me. That’s why I had Cece stitch this.
Another last: the last night of my last Panhellenic recruitment. We stood in a low-lit room under an emerald green ceiling, white roses laced through interlocking fingers. Someone was sniffling; mascara had been running down our cheeks all afternoon. I know that sororities are weird, but what I don’t know—what I will never understand—is how a single group of women could come to mean so much to me in such a short amount of time. I looked around at the room of women that I had surrounded myself with for the last four years, and wondered if we would ever be here, together, again. I bargained no; that life after April would be drastically different and undoubtedly worse than it was at that moment.
From a corner of the room, someone began to sing:
Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But, if we are wise, we know that there’s
Always tomorrow
After April, there would be no more piling six of us on a sagging couch, no more over-caffeinated late-night study sessions, no more leaning off of front porch railings in the sun, watching our little corner of the world go by. No more dancing barefoot, or at bars, or on them; no more Sunday morning recovery bagel runs, laughing about Saturday’s indiscretions. I grasped at those moments desperately, trying to keep them from slipping through my fingers; trying to hold on to them forever. It was during these most mundane of days—sitting at a sticky bar table, or on a sofa, or in the grass, talking about everything and nothing—that I would be overcome with a strange mingling of reverence and melancholy, struck by the realization that life would never be so simple again.
The soloist carried the first chorus by herself:
Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
’Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on
For the first time in four years, I had no clue where I would be in six months. Until that point, I could be reasonable sure at any given time what my next steps would be— I would be here, in Pittsburgh, or home, in Boston, or, briefly, abroad. I was always someone who Had It All Together, until that January, when I started to unravel. The ground that I knew was about to give out from beneath me, and I had no clue where I would land.
Then all 40 women came together for the last verse:
If there is a load
You have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me
Later that night I lay in bed, feeling lucky and sad and content and anxious all at the same time, with the words to “Lean on Me” still moving through my mind. If there is a load you have to bear… thinking about the women in that room and everything I knew—have known, will know forever—about them; all of their dilemmas and dramas and straight-up baggage that comes with being a woman, with being a human, with being alive … that you can’t carry… and this is why we do this weird thing, right? This weird sorority thing? It’s because no one cannot – should not have to— carry that baggage on their own backs, especially not now, not when life gets to be so simple … I’m right up the road… because even though we’re all leaving this city, this campus, each other, we won’t be THAT far—nothing that a road trip or a plane ticket can’t fix … I’ll share your load… because I’m sharing it now, and I will tomorrow, and no one cannot—should not—have to carry it on their own back, even when life stops being so simple … if you just call me… or text me or slide into my DMs for God’s sake… I’m only right up the road.
Right up the road.
Today, the cross stitch hangs in my bedroom, above my calendar. I look at it every single day, and I think about April— and all the months leading up to it—when the ground came out from underneath me, but I, miraculously, landed on my feet. I have a big-girl job in a different city 600 miles away, and life is anything but simple. There is much less barefoot dancing, and no more leaning off of front porch railings, but it’s still beautiful, only in different ways. And if at any point it’s not? Well, there’s always someone or something or somewhere right on up the road.