...It is performance. It's stepping onto a field or floor dressed in a gorgeous uniform, with hair and make-up to match. It's smiling whole-heartedly at the hundreds of people who paid money to see you give everything you've got. It's becoming your equipment, and focusing on your work, your guard's work, and putting a smile on the crowd's face. It's power, grace, emotion, and intensity that remains with you, and it is a pride in yourself, and the pride in the incredible talent that you and your gaurd possess.
...It is friendship. It's an amazing sisterhood that could never exist anywhere else but here. It's being able to see each and every one of your best friends at practice, and your coach knowing it, and never putting you together. It's meeting people who have an undying passion for the same art you do, and understanding what it is that you truly go through. It's learning things about people that you never though you'd learn, and becoming friends with people you never though you'd talk to. It's having someone to sharememories with, and it's finally understanding what true friends are.
....It is "roughing it." It's sleeping on busses, eating in every fast food joint, knowing what every bathroom looks like, andknowing how to cram onto a bus with 24 squad members and all the pit dads, and be able to be fully dressed with make-up in five minutes. It's wearing your uniform more than your clothes, and living in the band room more than your own house. It's serving a four-hour practice with a ten-minute water break, and considering yourself lucky that you even had a break at all. It's becoming friends with every bus driver your school has, and having them be your biggest fans. It's knowing that you won't be home all day, but loving every minute of the time away.
...It is memories. It's being able to laugh at the time when you tumbled during a performance, and was able to recover without even thinking about it. It's sharing life stories, and showing everyone youro "amazing" hidden talents. It's the guard parties and what goes on on the color guard bus. It's the hugs, smiles, frowns, and tears the come from everything from a great show to your worst performance ever. It's the tought love that your coach dishes out after a practice or performance from hell, and knowing that if she didn't believe in you, or didn't love you, she wouldn't bother. It's sitting in a circle and reminiscing of that "One time at band camp..." and rolling on the floor laughing over it. It's the stories that you can tell your children and grandchildren, and never regret a minute of it.
...It is difficult. It's performing unbelievable advanced drill to unbelievable fast music with equipment that could easily knock you unconscious. It's performing in 35 degree weather, and being rushed to the bathroom to warm up your fingers from the frostbite while grumbling that you should have never performed to begin with. It's dealing with horrible shows, upset coaches, and disgruntled teammates. It's practicing in the heat and humidity, passing out, and practicing again. It's marching with broken toes, splinted fingers, the flu, and fatigue. It's practicing until you drop, but because you love it, you keep going.
Lastly, color guard is a feeling. Not necessarily one that can be explained, like happy or sad, good or bad, but it's a feeling. It's the feeling you get after stepping onto that field for the first time, and it's the rush that goes through you when you're performing. It's the feeling you get when you come in last place and the tears flood your eyes, and it's the feeling you get when you recieve the standing ovation that you've always dreamed about. It's the way you feel hearing your music for the first time, and imagining the way the finished product is going to look. It's the way you feel knowing that you are part of something great. That regardless of the judges' scores or opinions, you have the best guard because of the people in it. It's how you feel when graduation comes, and whether or not you are graduating, a piece of you and your guard is missing. It's the feeling you get when you finally get it. When everything finally clicks. When you feel that true sense of unity in everything you do, and knowing that hard work pays off. IT's how youf eel when you know you're doing what you love, and that even when your guard career is "over," a large part of you will always remember the friendships, performances, the memories, the good and bad times, and the feeling that you are a changed person, and that you could never be who you are now without COLOR GUARD.
Take Me Home!