When high school is over, it’s rarely brought up again. At college you have a new life, so anything you did years ago isn’t important. For the most part I agree, the past is in the past, but I also love to bring up this former fact any time someone new asks me about myself, "I used to cheer." Although it’s been almost two years since I last put on a uniform, I am still occasionally in denial that I don’t cheer anymore. When cheerleading took up most of your free time in high school (read: it was your whole life), it’s easy to miss it. Many former cheerleaders, especially sorority girls, can probably relate to a couple of things ...
1. Watching sports is hard because you need to resist doing cheers. It’s a first and ten, and you’re not supposed to scream?
2. Also, watching sports from the stands is weird. How can you even see when you aren’t 10 feet away from the players?
3. You find yourself doing the dances to the songs that were part of your halftime routines whenever they in public (even if you’re at formal and your date feels awkward watching you dance alone).
4. It’s impossible to look good dancing because your moves are too sharp and “cheerleader-like.”
5. You’ve tried to put your college colors/mascots in your high school cheers. "Blue, gold, white; Devil team let’s fight, let’s fight," sounds much better than "Green and white; Bobcat team let’s fight, let’s fight."
6. You instantly bond with anyone who was once a cheerleader. "You were a backspot too?!"
7. Even if you weren’t a flyer, you still check to see if you magically got or kept your heel stretch or scorpion (you didn’t).
8. You take your sorority chants way too seriously.
9. You still randomly will do cheers in front of a mirror for no reason.
10. You can’t bear to part with any of your former cheer shirts.
11. Your cheeks don’t hurt when you need to smile non-stop during recruitment because you had to do it for games, so you’re used to it.
12. The trend of sorority girls wearing bows probably started from former cheerleaders re-wearing them. You would know, you have a drawer full of them.
13. Speaking of which you have extras for your sisters to borrow for theme parties or bid day (although you’ll still wear them just because).
14. You STILL think you’re destined to be with a former (or current) football player (Just me? Remember Lyla Garrity and Tim Riggins in "Friday Night Lights"? … best couple.)
15. Some phrases will never be the same. When someone says “lock it,” you don’t think of the door, you think of you screaming up to your shaking flyer.
16. You still wear your ponytails as high as physically possible.
17. Glitter is still an extremely important part of your life, and you find it unfair how it’s not socially acceptable to spray yourself in the glitter you would use before football games.
18. While you love college more than you can put into words, you know that if given the opportunity, you’d cheer at one last game in a heartbeat.
