So, I never wanted to be a Girl Scout. I didn’t have the least bit of desire to sell cookies and be one with nature. All of that sounded like it was for the birds. Those badges never appealed to me.

I danced. I cheered. Elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, elbow. I debuted as a debutante. I was the Queen of the Freshmen and of Homecoming. Despite all of this ultra girl stuff, I was quite skeptical of the whole “sorority” thing. I didn’t run to it in college. Instead, I questioned it and watched it with a suspicious eye. Due to many of the things I witnessed, I decided not to make that so-called “lifetime commitment”.

Just my luck, I took a Graduate Assistantship in a fraternity house and immersed myself with one swift “Yes” in the land of fraternity & sorority life. Say what? Yeah, I took a job living with 34 frat boys while also advising Greek Week and Greek Homecoming. Don’t ask. I still don’t have a clue what I was thinking but…it turned out for the best.

I actually liked it and thus I decided to keep working with the Greeks for my first post graduate job at a little private school in North Carolina that I’m sure you’ve never heard of at all. I was an outsider on the inside and the students didn’t seem to mind at all.

Life was good.

On a not so awesome Wednesday at work I received the phone call that would change my Greek fate FOREVER! Some lovely people had gotten together and decided to nominate me as an Honor Initiate of Delta Delta Delta (yes, that sorority).

Say what? Yep, it happened.

Well, I decided to take them up on the offer and step on over to the crescent side of the moon. Why? Well, after some life reflection I realized that DDD has played a role in my life since I was 18. It was the first sorority I was drawn to in the W&M Sorority Handbook, it was the sorority that provided me with inspiration for my seminar paper during graduate school, it is the sorority that is connected with St. Jude that was created by Danny Thomas whose legacy and vision brings me to tears, it is the sorority who paid for my professional development at IFI. It is the sorority that focuses on issues of body image which is a topic that is dear to my heart. To be honest, it was also the sorority that hosted my favorite room at an SAE Progressive in college. Shh!! Don’t tell the Greek Advisor ;). The Tri Delta women I’d met after college were also some of my favorites and were always women of high caliber.

College Krystal had never really been clued in on the real nature of sorority. I didn’t know that the whole point was to empower me to be a better woman. It took me till I was 26 to realize that sorority was for me all along but I’d just needed more time to come around than others. Participating in ritual at 26 was probably the best thing I could have done because I actually listened to the words and was in sheer awe of what Sarah Ida Shaw and her girls had put together in 1888.

Today is International Badge Day. With great pride I wear the badge of Delta Delta Delta Fraternity. I am a member of the Alpha Pi chapter at the University of Maryland, College Park. Happy Badge Day to all of my Tri Delta and Panhellenic sisters. DLAM!!!