One day, you’re in fifth grade learning how to hold your instrument; the next, you’re zipping up your uniform for the last time. 

 After spending half of your school career with the same people, making the same melodies and handcrafting the same memories with each other. Nothing is like a marching band. You spend countless hours with your peers working towards creating the pictures that the crowd enjoys.   

One day, you may find yourself humming a song. You may not remember the name, remember the composer, or even some of the people you performed it with. But your muscles remember. Your muscles remember the hurt when you ran that song 5 times in a row, trying to perfect it. Your muscles remember the feeling of the hug you gave your best friend after you finally got it right. Your muscles remember how you were 17, standing at your last ever football game, taking in the last shreds of something you poured your heart into. Your muscles remember how you cried when you saw your class as something different. Something special.   

Every year, there are people who come and go. You may have even told stories about them. “Oh! Remember Michael, who fell during a competition, did a backwards somersault and got back up to continue marching in time?” Distinctively, I remember my freshman year’s senior night. It was sometime in October, and my section had gone out to Red Robin’s before the game. I stood in the stadium light, watching my seniors, the ones who taught me everything, the ones who changed me fundamentally as a person, walk across the football field as we bid them farewell. 

 I watched as the people who were my best friends turned into complete strangers. Morph into adults right before my eyes. When standing in that situation, you can’t believe that in just a few short years, that will be you.   

Someday, you might find yourself telling the children in your life about your time in band. You may give them lessons on their instruments. You might teach them note names or music theory. Your fingers might remember where they go, and it might take you back to your last field show, soaking in the stadium lights as they wash over you. You’ll never get those moments back. After all, time marches on.