Once In A Lifetime

Goodness. Where do I start?! To wake up this morning, the first thing coming into mind is "Holy crap, I'm competing at Nationals today." I didn't feel too nervous that morning, until half way through the bus ride. A few hours away, I began to think about it: this stadium is huge! The audience will probably be packed! The butterflies in my stomach twitched. Pulling into the parking lot of the Naval Stadium, I found myself saying "I don't want to perform guys, can we just not?" I know how much of a lie it is; I was more excited than scared. This was a chance in a lifetime to perform at Nationals, and whether we did good or bad, I was completely grateful! Warm-up was freezing, but I tried to ignore that fact. Deep breaths were taken in hopes of taming my excitement and lungs. One of the most thrilling parts other than the performance was standing at the gate, with the field in clear view. I was ready to march on with my chin up high, ready to dominate. As we heard the last band's last note followed by massive applause, my heart nearly skipped a beat. I gathered up my equiptment and gave out my last best wishes to the band. Setting up on the field, I stayed joyful and frolicked across with Jaelynn. haha Standing at opening set, at attention, I was sucking in air and blowing it out as much as possible. My heart was beating 3x faster than usual. Not gonna lie, I glanced at the jumbo tron a couple times. That screen is amazingly huge. It was funny seeing familiar faces up there! Despite a few imperfections with tossing and whatnot, that was the best I have ever felt, coming off the field this entire season! The tempos were decent, performance was amazing, and I was proud to march Belleville. By awards, we were cheering our lungs out, proud to be who we are. We placed 16th of 21. The number sounds bad, but we beat most 2A bands, including 2 open bands. Our score went up and I also found out that our guard came 7th in the Nation. Hearing that, nothing else mattered :) A once in a lifetime chance..used to its best extent.