"Drum Major is your band ready for exhibition?"
No matter where you are the field, you will miss hearing those words that make you nervous and excited.

As you approached Senior year, you probably thought "I won't miss this, I will be okay." Boy, were you wrong. The minute your first last game arrives, the sadness is overwhelming. You are starting your last marching season as a high school band member, and your emotions can't handle it. You have made so many memories marching year after year: the good, the bad, and the ones you will never speak of. But you will hold those memories in your heart forever, they are your story of your band experience.
Three years ago, I was just like you, not sure if I would miss all the fun that comes with band. Then, I was at my last first game and it all hit me. No more dancing and laughing in the stands while we play stand tunes. No more getting to hang out with my best friends every Friday night and/or Saturdays. I had said I was ready for it all to end until it really was ending. Band is where I made 90 percent of my friends and leaving that lifestyle was bittersweet.
If it doesn't hit you on the last first game, then you will feel the sadness on the morning of your last first competition as a band member. Trust me, it will be an amazing yet emotional day, full of memories and fun moments with your friends. But, then you hear those words:
"You may now take the field for exhibition."
And no matter where you are standing on the field - Drum Major, Pit, Band, or Auxiliary -those words will make you sad.

I remember the moment, we marched on to the field and did the turnaround - right before we were called to start our show - panic ran through my body. The kind you get when you feel like you don't know where your first spot is and the music has disappeared from your memory. I looked at my Drum Major in fear, and then the show started and I marched like the second before never happened.

If you have remained emotionally stable through the season so far, then you will definitely crack on Senior Night. You may be thinking "well this is the last home game, I got this." Sorry to say, but you will definitely crack and you will not be alone. Lining up to perform for the last time on your home football field, tears are running down your cheeks and the emotions are all coming out at once, but you give it your all. Then, you hear everyone saying, "we are going to line up for the senior walk at the end of the game along with the senior football players and cheerleaders."

When the final walk across the football field starts, remember to take it all in. It may seem silly, but it is really an amazing tradition. This is the football field where you made so many memories and maybe a few mistakes, and now it is the final walk.

This final chapter of your high school band career will be full of laughs and tears, but it is the marching season you will never forget.

"I was told that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, I never knew that those steps would be 8 to 5." - Unknown