[D]I've Got This Wonderful Feeling Inside my Heart

I've yet to find any emotion that can compare to the ones I felt today. There is no substitute for pure satisfaction, for the tingly feeling in the pit of your stomach when you finally complete an exponentially difficult task. A few examples from my DI past:

-Winning a medal at States for the very first time in fifth grade and crying when you realize that you get to go to GLOBALS.

-Performing at Globals for the very first time while nearly convulsing from the anxiety.

-Watching in apprehension--and excitement--as officials add folding chairs to the enormous gym bleachers because the audience that came to see YOUR seventh grade team's performance has filled the entire gym.

-Staring with a gaping jaw as officials have to kick people out of your eighth grade performance room because it's already down to standing room only and it's a fire hazard to have that many people in the room.

-Being stopped by unknown kids in the hallway to be congratulated, applauded, and hugged, because YOUR team has forever impacted their lives [and because they absolutely love you... This one can sometimes border on "creepy" but mostly it's just the best feeling in the world :D].

-Gathering a "band of followers" over the years, and feeling so loved when they come to almost all of your performances simply because they want to.

-Spraying your hair violently bright colors in a secluded alcove or hallway [and then suffocating underneath the protective face towel when the fumes begin to fill your lungs]

-Sitting on the floor at CMU, only to be called up for an amazing award and then to be told that you've also conveniently won first place.

-Eating Pixie Sticks and drinking Amp before Global Instant Challenge with an optimistic smile on your face [even though you know it's going to be really, really difficult and nearly impossible to solve]

-Dorm parties [I'm not going into details on that one] and nine-hour caravan road trips--that almost always involve somebody sleeping on somebody else [and yet we don't care?].

-And finally, squeezing hands with your team members as the announcer calls off the winning places in your Challenge... and screaming like little girls when they call your school name and team number.

I can't find anything that compares to those. Nothing. DI has become a passion for us, something that we curse and complain about from December to February and then celebrate at Regionals, States, and sometimes Globals.

This is my eighth year in DI, but only the seventh time I've come home from Regionals and completed my little ritual: I take all of my medals off their hook, lay them out on the floor by year, and use Sharpie to retrace the year I wrote on the back of every one.

I was shocked this year to see how many medals we've accumulated. Four Regional golds, three Regional silvers, three State golds, one State silver, and two State bronzes. That's almost ridiculous, but not in a bad way, I suppose.

We also have three State trophies [they come with the first-place medals], but I can only vouch for the whereabouts of two of them. One is sitting on my bedroom floor, waiting to be taken back to our DI HQ. Another rests atop a proud shelf in our old elementary school, since we won it in sixth grade. But the third--and don't quote me on this--is most likely at our high school, but it's just a guess. Nobody's sure where that one is, so we're hoping we gave it to the school in ninth grade and that it's not lying in a gutter somewhere.

What a world we've created for ourselves. What a past we've established, and only at sixteen and seventeen. Since my first year--fourth grade--I've had twelve different team members [only seven max on a team at once... we gained/lost some over time; that's just what happens in life], nineteen competitions, thirty-two official performances [give or take], hundreds of meetings and dress rehearsals, and eight completely unique skits, with scripts, costumes, roles, Challenges, sets, and props that reflected the work we put in from October to May.

Today we got second place at Regionals. We placed first in Instant Challenge and Central Challenge, but we got second in Side Trips [parts of your skit that are of particular merit and are scored separately for their creativity and innovation]. The closest team was just enough ahead of us in Side Trips and just enough behind us in the other two that they got bumped to first and we got put in second. Altogether, our total scores were less than 2 points apart.

States is in four weeks, and we know what we need to do in that time. We've got costumes to fix, problems to correct, props to re-caulk [Year of the Caulk!] and a million other memories to mold and shape.

And now, I'm going to sleep, because I've been up since 4:45 this morning and the team nap we took at HQ was not nearly long enough. Goodnight, my favorites and my friends. :]