Color Guard State Champions!!

        This has been a really eventful weekend for me!!
        Last week was practice, practice, practice.  We finished our show up and worked so hard it was painful for all of us, but we're so grateful for it now.  Yesterday, Saturday, was the UCGC Championships at Roy High School. 
        We got there right before we were supposed to do our warm-ups before competing.  We stretched and I stressed.  We warmed up and I was so nervous!  We'd only just added the triples that week...
        So we did what we always do.  We sang "Lean on Me" as our good-luck tradition, and I almost cried.  We had some awesome friends come and hang out with us all day, and they wished us luck in the form of "At least T.J.'s not fat!"  And then we did it.  I smiled bigger than I ever had before.  We even caught our triples and quads!
        After we cleaned up, I was still nervous.  There were 11 guards in our division that day, and six would get to finals.  Even though we'd been placing most of the season, there was always risk that we wouldn't...
        We got a message from Sarah telling us to all meet with her.  We saw the scores posted on the window, with Copper Hills right up on top.  This was our first time getting first!  Now the pressure was on to get first in finals, so we would actually be recognized for it.
        And we ate potatoes and gave end-of-the-season letters and gifts and cried because it's what we do.
         Viewmont and Roy (who had been beating us all season) wanted our blood.  One guard member overheard, "These sequins right here (on face) won't be seen by the judges, but we will know they are there and it will help us to kick Copper Hills' trash."
        So we practiced more.  And Roy and Viewmont practiced next to us.
        And then my day started going bad... I had a low blood sugar.  Over the course of an hour, I had over 140 carbs without insulin (60 is the average meal), and it barely made an upward dent.  My body would have none of it.  For another time, I cried.  We were within half an hour of our finals performance, my last performance ever, and if my blood sugar didn't come up, I wouldn't be able to perform. 
        I almost didn't.  But I embarrassingly stuffed my face with Oreos and decided to go on anyway.  Not that I remember half of the performance.  I am incredibly grateful that I practiced so much this week, because I got through the whole thing almost entirely on muscle memory.  I finally broke down crying when I realized it really was my last performance ever.  I would never compete with these people again.  Apparently, that was the signal to everyone else that it was okay to cry.  I've never gotten such tight hugs.
        Awards... it felt like hours of thinking, don't call "Copper Hills", but when they finally did, it was preceded by "This year's Scholastic Regional AA champions".  YES. YES. YES.  I felt bad for being so happy at beating others, but we deserved it.  We worked hard and made it up to there by the last competition, and that's nothing that we will apologize for.



I am so so glad to have been part of such a wonderful guard.  We really all worked so hard.  Four years ago, our guard placed third out of six, once.  And then nothing, until this season.  I really didn't expect to be here.  Beating my own expectations makes the victory all the sweeter. 
        I will miss my guard so much.  They are all my best friends.  We've devoted weeks and months and years to each other.  I wish I was just another junior in high school, to compete more, but I've got to move on, and so do they.  I'm lucky to leave it in such capable hands.  They are some of the most compassionate, hilarious, fun people I know, so it better not end here!

We didn't forget to be awesome. 
So DON'T FORGET TO BE AWESOME.