What is a Sorority?

[newbie]

This is simply amazing! I got this from some website devoted to sororities...

What is a Sorority?
If its really anything at all,
A sorority is not entirely,
a flower, national conventions, monogrammed rings, worn-out
songs, Bylaws, Membership Standards, or a golden pen.
And it is not entirely
an institution, a creed, a legacy, an obligation, or a way of life.
If you're going to insist that it is something,
A sorority is only
Moving in for the first time and slowly learning that all
beautiful people have fat legs and use mouthwash and wear last year's coats.
Sitting next to an alum you don't particularly like and being
nice because maybe it all means something to her.
Long, tired eternities of black coffee and exam snacks when
you can't remember the Renaissance architects or the stages of
photosynthesis and respiration.
Borrowing a skirt from Julie and a blouse from Nanci, and
shoes from Christy, and a belt and a coat from
Jennifer and passing it off as your own.
Sitting on the back steps and listening with all your
helplessness because she's lost and she's lonely and it seems
the whole world just fell into ugly pieces.
And it's
coming in very late one night and closing the door to tell
someone who's seen you through the hardest years of your life
that you're happy now, and you're getting married.
And a sorority is, I suppose, a kind of evaluation.
You grow up inside these elegant halls
And perhaps you do learn more of the grizzly, ungrateful circus we
call life than if you had lived it somewhere else.
You learn that a football player is sometimes just shoulder pads
and that skinny arms sometimes hide a great man.
You learn that some lecture halls are just watery echoes and that
there are silent rooms for deeper rivers.
You learn that no matter where you come from or who took you there,
you've still got to find that one small acre that belongs to
you, by yourself.
You learn to wait, because change is slow and change isn't always right.
You learn that there's still alot left to believe in and a whole
lot more to hope for.
You learn that love has never been easy, and that it's a long time coming.
And if you're very smart, or very lucky, you learn that no matter
how big or how messy the world becomes, what is precious and
what is permanent is always the same.
And in the very end
A sorority can only be a better way to stumble down the back steps
and out the front door.

WOW, that poem was wonderful!!!