There are places I'll remember

As I begin my fourth year in BBYO, I have started to realize that some places become more than places simply because of what we leave behind in them. A chapter room can hold years of laughter. A hotel can become synonymous with a particular song, a particular group of people, a particular version of yourself. There are hallways I could walk through years from now and immediately remember who I was when I stood there. As my chapter’s N'siah, I now get to watch younger members begin making those memories for themselves, and there is something almost surreal about seeing them step into a world that once felt entirely new to me. I want to tell them that they are standing in places that will one day live inside them.

All my life, though some have changed.

BBYO has changed me, too. The organization I entered is not exactly the organization I know now, and I am certainly not the person who first walked through its doors. Traditions shift, people graduate, friendships evolve, and every year leaves its own mark. But maybe that is the point. BBYO has never asked me to remain the same in order to belong. It has given me room to grow into every new version of myself, and in doing so, it has grown with me.

Some forever, not for better

Not every part of growing in BBYO has been easy. Some things have changed in ways I wish they hadn't, and some friendships have taken paths I never expected. There are memories I hold more tenderly than others. But I have learned that loving something does not require believing it was perfect. It means allowing it to have been real. The beautiful moments, the difficult ones, the mistakes, the growing pains; they all belong to the same story. Even the moments I would not choose to relive have helped shape the person standing here now.

Some have gone, and some remain.

Four years in, I have watched people enter this organization with the same uncertainty I once carried and watched others leave with pieces of it tucked into their lives. Now, I find myself somewhere in between: still learning, but also responsible for helping someone else begin. Younger members look to me in the way I once looked to the people before me, and I have begun to understand that leadership is less about being the person with all the answers and more about making sure the light keeps moving. Someone handed me a flame when I arrived. Now it is my turn to carry it carefully, let it burn brightly, and eventually pass it on.

All these places had their moments

When I think about BBYO, I do not remember a calendar. I remember moments. A laugh that lasted far too long. A conversation at 1 AM on the bathroom floor. A session song that still makes me tear up when it begins to blast in my car. Walking into a room and being greeted by my favorite people. The hugs after a particularly meaningful separates. The kind of moments that feel almost insignificant while they are happening, only to become the ones you would give anything to experience again. Maybe that is what makes a life: not the grand events we know we are supposed to remember, but the little moments we never realize we are saving.

With lovers and friends I still can recall.

The people are what make those places matter. My BBYO experience has been built by friendships I never could have predicted, people who arrived at exactly the right moments and became part of me before I even realized it was happening. There are people who remember my first conventions, my first leadership experiences, and versions of me that feel almost like different people now. There are people who watched me grow from a younger member into a chapter N’siah, and there is something extraordinary about being known across time. These friendships have not simply given me people to stand beside; they have given me witnesses to who I was, who I am, and who I am still becoming.

Some are dead and some are living,

I carry with me the legacy of every person who has shaped my love for this sisterhood. Some are still beside me; others have moved into entirely different chapters of their lives. But I have learned that leaving BBYO does not mean leaving behind what it gave you. A person can graduate and still live on in a tradition they created, a phrase everyone still says, a lesson they taught, or a younger member they inspired. That is the beauty of a flame: the candle does not become smaller because it lights another. The light simply becomes larger. Every generation receives something from the one before it, changes it, and carries it somewhere new.

In my life I've loved them all.

I have loved the people who made me laugh until I couldn't breathe, the people who challenged me when I needed it, the people who taught me how to lead, and the people who simply sat beside me when I needed someone there. I have loved the advisors who gave pieces of their time, the older members who made me believe I could become more, and the younger members who remind me why I wanted to lead in the first place. I have loved the people who made this organization feel less like something I participated in and more like somewhere I belonged. When I think about BBYO, I realize that my love for it has never really been about an organization. It has been about people, and about what happens when those people decide to build something together.

But of all these friends and lovers

Certain people become inseparable from a chapter of your life. The people who watched me join this sisterhood and saw my love for it grow into something I could never have anticipated. The people who watched me stumble through leadership before I learned how to lead, who knew me before I knew myself, who sat up with me discussing everything under the sun. When I look around my chapter, my region, and the international order now, I see more than the people beside me. I see everyone who came before them, every person who gave something of themselves so that this moment could exist. I am standing in a story that began long before me, and I am lucky enough to add another page.

There is no one compares with you.

There is something about BBYO that I still cannot quite explain to someone who has never experienced it. It is not one convention, one chapter meeting, or one friendship. It is the accumulation of everything: the songs, the late nights, the ridiculous inside jokes, the tears, the speeches, the friendships, the feeling of being thirteen and believing the people beside you would matter forever, and realizing three years later that they actually do. BBYO has become its own language in my life. I may not always have the words to explain it, but I know exactly what it feels like to speak it.

And these mem'ries lose their meaning

But memories are not meant to replace the present. As much as I love looking backward, I do not want nostalgia to convince me that the best parts are already behind me. I am only beginning my fourth year. I still have people to meet, ideas to chase, traditions to create, and moments I have not even imagined yet. And because I reclassed, I have been given something I never expected: another year. Six years instead of five. An unexpected gift of time, and a reminder that I do not have to rush toward the ending of something I am still living.

When I think of love as something new.

Maybe that is the most beautiful part of where I am now. I know enough to understand how quickly these years disappear, but I am still early enough to make something new out of them. I get to help create the kind of BBYO experience that I once needed from the people before me. I get to welcome members who are still finding their place, build something that will outlast my board, and watch people discover pieces of themselves they did not know were there. My love for BBYO is no longer only about remembering what it has given me. It is about asking what I can give it next.

Tho' I know I'll never lose affection

I will always have a soft spot for the BBYO of 2023-the excitement of not knowing what was coming, the people I met before I understood how important they would become, the traditions that were brand new to me. But I do not want to live trying to recreate that version of BBYO. I want to honor it by continuing forward. A flame is not meant to remain exactly as it was when it was first lit. It flickers, it grows, it changes shape. What matters is that it keeps burning.

For people and things that went before,

I am grateful for everything that existed before me. For the leaders who built traditions I now get to carry. For the members who showed up before I ever knew their names. For the people who decided that this organization was worth their time, their energy, and their hearts. I will never know every person whose choices made my BBYO possible, but I feel their presence every time I walk into a chapter meeting, every time I sing a song that has been sung before me, every time I watch a younger member find their place. Their work became my inheritance. Now, I have the privilege of deciding what I will leave behind.

I know I'll often stop and think about them,

Someday, I know I will look back on this year and wonder how it passed so quickly. I will hear a song and remember a convention. I will see an old photo and recognize people who look impossibly young. I will remember the chapter I led, the people I stood beside, and the version of myself who thought she had so much more time. But I do not want that future to make me sad now. If anything, it makes the present feel more precious. Right now, I am living in the memories I will someday miss, and I want to be awake for all of them.

In my life I love you more.

So I do not want to spend this year preparing to say goodbye. I want to spend it saying yes. Yes to the late nights, the new traditions, the unexpected friendships, the younger members who will surprise me, and the moments that will only make sense in retrospect. I want to lead my chapter with the same generosity that was shown to me. I want to leave it brighter than I found it. And if I have learned anything from the people who came before me, it is that the goal was never to keep the flame for ourselves. It was to make it burn brightly enough that someone else would want to carry it.

Tho' I know I'll never lose affection

Eventually, my six years will become a story I tell instead of a life I am actively living. There will be new boards, new members, new traditions, and new people standing where I once stood. And I hope that happens. I hope BBYO continues to change. I hope it continues to make room for people I will never meet. I hope the members who come after me love it enough to make it different from the organization I knew. Because that is not the end of BBYO. That is BBYO.

For people and things that went before,

Every generation gets to hold the flame for a little while. We inherit it from people whose names we may not know, tend to it with our own hands, and eventually place it into someone else's. I used to think legacy meant leaving something behind that would never change. Now I think it means leaving something alive. I want the people who come after me to know that they are not starting from nothing. They are stepping into a light that has been carried for generations, and they have the chance to make it burn in ways none of us could have imagined.

I know I'll often stop and think about them,

Maybe that is what I will miss most: not one particular convention or one particular year, but this exact version of my life. My chapter as it is now. My friends as we are now. The feeling of standing in a room full of people who are still becoming themselves alongside me. I know it will change. I want it to change. I want to watch younger members take ownership of this organization and make it theirs, just as so many people before me made it mine. I want to know that when my time comes to step aside, the flame will not dim. It will simply be in someone else's hands.

In my life I love you more.

Three years ago, I walked into BBYO not knowing what it would become to me. Now, at the beginning of my fourth year, I find myself standing on the other side of that first nervous beginning, with more memories than I could ever hold and more still waiting to be made. I have six years instead of five. I have another year of leadership, another year of friendships I have not made yet, another year of traditions that have not been created, another year of becoming someone I have not met yet.

And my flame is burning brighter than ever.

Maybe that is what four years has taught me: loving BBYO is not about holding onto it so tightly that it cannot change. It is about giving yourself to it completely while you are here, letting it shape you, and then making sure there is enough light for the person who comes next.

I do not know exactly where this flame will go after me.

I only know that I am lucky enough to hold it now.

And for two more years, I intend to let it burn.

In my life I love you more.