There is a tradition on my drill team before our last spring show (our final performance together as a team), where the entire team circles up and the seniors say their testimonies about being on the team. Yes, we have a banquet at the end of the year where all of our parents come (the formal end to our season), but this goodbye is more personal. This goodbye is our final message to the team; our legacy if you will. As a younger girl on the team, I would listen to the older girls talk about how much they had grown through being on the team and how much they loved the team, and I would panic because I would be scared that come senior year I wouldn’t have anything significant to say. Little did I know that by the time my final spring show rolled around I would have more stories to tell and memories to share than could possibly fit in such a limited time frame. The day before our final show, most of the seniors (myself included) tried to brainstorm what to say, but it was difficult to translate four years of success, failure, love, hard work, and friendship into a five minute testimony. As I was driving to our school on the day of our final show, I still had no idea what I wanted to say and accepted that I was probably going to give a mediocre goodbye.
The day of our final show, it was a beautiful day… I hopped in my car and made the ever so familiar drive to school. I had the top down, my music was blasting, and the sun was shining. Everything was perfect. Though there was nothing significant about this particular drive to school, it was significant in the sense that everything seemed to be going just right. I remember thinking to myself “What a perfect drive,” and it was an amazing feeling to be driving down the nearly empty highway with an excitement about where I was headed. It was then that I finally realized exactly what I wanted to say.
When I first got my car, I couldn’t believe that she was all mine. I had begged my parents for a Beetle for as long as I can remember, annoyingly pointing different Beetles out on the street, and showing them car reviews on Youtube whenever I got the chance. The day finally came when they caved (thanks mom and dad), and little did I know how much that car would mean to me. That car wasn’t just something that took me from place to place… it was a safe space for me throughout high school.
When I initially got the car, I was excited but also super nervous to drive it. I didn’t go on highways and drove at grandma speed all the time. I knew I wasn’t the best driver, and busy roads would make me panic regardless of if I had practiced driving there before with my dad. I was too scared to put the top down, and usually only stuck to driving to places that I knew how to get to. This was similar to my freshman year on my drill team. My freshman year, I was timid and wasn’t too confident in my dance ability. I didn’t have as much dance experience as a lot of my teammates, and I always felt like I was behind. Because of this, I tried to blend in and not be too noticeable. I didn’t want to make any mistakes, and that restricted me a lot in practice because I would be too scared to do anything to my fullest potential. The older girls on the team were intimidating, and because of this I stuck to hanging out with a few of the other freshman that were in the same boat as me. Overall my freshman year on the team consisted of me feeling out of place and uneasy.
As I gained experience on the road, I became more and more comfortable with driving my new car. I eventually got confident enough to put the top down when I was going to places I knew or areas close to my house. I started to be a little less tense while driving, and actually began enjoying it. My sophomore year on my drill team, something clicked and I finally stopped being so nervous. I danced as big as I could and wanted to be noticed. I wasn’t afraid to make mistakes, and would show up to practice every day excited to dance bigger and better than I had the day before. This change in mindset changed my entire outlook on the team. My confidence in dancing went beyond practice and I was able to become best friends not only with a group of girls in my grade but also in the grades above me. I felt comfortable on my team and felt like I truly belonged. This trust and relationship with the other girls on my team made me perform better and improve at a rate that I didn’t think was possible.
I eventually got cocky in my driving and felt like I was a pro. I was bored with the short drives to school and the gym and one day I finally mustered up the courage to drive with the top down on the highway. I had my sunglasses on and had the music blasting, ready to look like I was straight out of a music video on the highway. Then everything went horribly wrong. The papers in my backseat that I had forgotten to secure down went flying everywhere, the bobby pins in my cup holder flew and hit me in the face, my hair wasn’t tied back and it flew around me like Medusa’s… I panicked because it felt like everything was in chaos. I got off the highway frazzled, and I definitely took a blow to my confidence. My junior year on drill team, my dream came true and I became an officer. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, and was mainly excited for the perks such as getting a different colored uniform and getting my name called at football games. Little did I know that the very few perks we got as officers hardly outweighed the work we had to put in to the job. I made a lot of mistakes, had many talking-to’s from my coach, and overall felt like I was always doing the wrong thing. What no one told me then was that these mistakes would help me in the long run because I learned firsthand what worked and what didn’t.
Finally comes senior year. I become a senior military officer and I am on cloud nine. My four best friends and I are all military officers together, and everything somehow falls into place. The team now feels like home to me, and I consider every girl on the team a sister. I try to take younger girls under my wing just like the older girls before did to me, and I better myself as a leader by investing as much time as I possibly can into the program. Half the time I can’t tell if I am being a good leader or not, but I try my best regardless. My year isn’t without mistakes… I am guilty of wearing the wrong practice uniform or messing up formations, but I stop treating every mistake like the end of the world. The transition between junior and senior year is seamless, and I now have learned from the many mistakes I made before. I’ve learned to secure down my papers, put the bobby pins in my glove compartment, and tie back my hair. The feeling I get when I’m with my team is similar to the top down, music blasting, sun shining drive in my Beetle. When I perform alongside my team, laugh alongside my team, and make memories alongside my team, the world feels perfect.
That Beetle was an unexpected safe haven for me through all of the highs and lows of high school. Whenever any of us had a rough day, my friends and I would get in the car and sit in the parking lot venting. When I got the phone call saying that I had made the UT Pom Squad, I was sitting in my car at the Chic Fil A drive-thru. There were days when I would just get in my car and drive just to clear my thoughts. When I first made my drill team, I had no idea that the friends I would make, the passion I would discover, and the person I would become were all dependent on me being on the team. I had more personal growth on the team than you could read about in a coming of age novel, and by the time I graduated I had enough memories alongside my teammates to last me a lifetime. The journey wasn’t always easy, but the road made the destination that much sweeter.
