Personal Essay: How Marching Band Changed My Life

I thought it was stupid. My older sister loved the marching band, so I always got dragged to their performances. I could not tell what was so appealing about it all; it consisted of walking on a field while playing instruments and flags being swung in the air. Participating in a marching band was never what I intended nor wanted to do. The idea bored me, but my mom insisted. Following in my sister’s footsteps, my mom signed me up to march trombone my freshman year. The idea alone baffled me; at the time dance filled my life and I showed no interest for this vastly different activity. However, I still joined, but since the peak of my dance season conflicted with the beginning of marching band, I joined a few weeks late. All would have been well if only the trombone section did not disintegrated leaving me without a home. This left me in the dust with no section to go to. To learn a brand new instrument would have shoved me even farther behind, and I refused to go on. In spite of my thoughts, my mom insisted in me not dropping out, so we took a new approach. I joined the color guard. Freshman year of color guard was a wakeup call. Since I joined late, a “big buddy” got assigned to me to teach me what I missed. She terrified me. She was the only sophomore buddy and everyone

I entered freshman year as a small, shy, little girl who would run from a crowd if they looked her way. Now I have grown so much: from being the only freshman on the main flag line my first year, to being thrown into a unprepared leadership position and then one of the youngest captains my second has forced me to learn lessons the hard way. These lessons are cherished because they are not just for guard, they are life lessons that I use, and will continue to use everyday. Everyone will be pushed down at sometime, what makes or breaks you is how you stand up and what you take from that