It wasn't just any normal weekend. It was an exciting weekend one you wait for all season, one you work all season for. All that hard work has finally paid off because you made it where you want to be. But that work is not done yet. 

It was my ninth-grade year and I was a varsity dancer. It started off being fun hanging out with friends and enjoying being at practice. But it was time to focus. We needed to be focused to aim for what we wanted. Every day all of us were in that gym working our butts off. We worked really hard and our hard work was paying off. When we got to competitions we would get ready and get focused and then we would go dance and go to the awards ceremony. We would patiently wait for that exact moment when we heard our name get called. We would all jump and cheer and we would be excited because we knew that our time was coming when all this hard work would finally pay off. After competitions, we would have our Sundays to ourselves, and then it was right back to getting to work. We needed to keep working hard so that we could be at the place where we wanted. When it was finally time for sections we all knew that we were ready. We got to sections, where we were all focused we walked in surely knowing we were going home tonight with a medal around our neck. But we couldn't be too excited we still need to be focused and ready for the worst. When it was time for us to dance we all heard our fans cheering us on. They were ready and so were we. We went on that floor and crushed it. We were all so happy and now it was time to wait patiently. We got to the awards, we were all so nervous but excited at the same time. It was time for them to call who was going to state. All of us were holding hands saying please please let us be the ones, they called third it wasn't us, they called second it wasn't us, then it was time for first. Waiting for them to call it felt like a million years. They finally called it and it was us. We all cheered, we were so happy we got what we had been working towards, The blue medal. Now it was time to get to work and prepare for state.

It was time for state all of us were so excited to get there. We were all having fun hanging out laughing it's like we are one big family. We were all getting ready for the big day the one we have waited for all season. Finally, it was the day when all the work we had put into our routine would pay off. When we went to the target center with nobody there it was so calm and peaceful. When we went down to the floor to run through our routine I thought to myself wow I finally made it to the big Target center floor not knowing what it was going to feel like when they were people watching me. We went back up to our spot and started getting ready. When people started to come it was the most ambushes thing ever. You could see all the people trying to find their kid and I started to get nervous. When one of our seniors saw me stressing she came up to me and said something that stuck with me she said “There is no reason to be stressing you have made it to state you have nothing to lose from here.” once I heard that all the nerves were gone. It was time to go do our routine. We got to the part where we could see all of our fans ready to cheer us on. We watched the other team in front of us do their routine. All of us holding hands and getting focused. Finally, the announcer calls us out to the floor. We could hear our fans cheering for us and the moment we stepped out on that floor it went completely silent. It was time to show everyone what we have done all season long. 

When we got to our first spot where we started all you could hear were the other girls on my team saying we got this. The joy I felt when the music started and I knew that I had made it and this is why I dance. Throughout the whole dance I could feel all the excitement from my teammates it was like nothing else mattered in that moment. Once we got done and got off the floor we could hear our fans going wild and we knew that we did an amazing job. We all were crying and hugging each other because we knew it was the last time that we were ever going to dance with our seniors again. At that moment I felt pure joy that it was my first time dancing on the state floor and it was our senior’s last time dancing on the state floor and I got to do it with them. After dancing we went and saw our parents and when we turned the corner to go see them. They all started cheering for us and we ran to hug our parents. They were all so happy for us. When I hugged my dad, I knew it was one of the happiest days of my life. 

After that day I knew that I wanted to dance there again so I worked my butt off every day of the next summer so that I was ready for the next season. But after that day I knew that you don't get everything handed to you. You have to work for what you want. That's what I learned to want something you have to work for it.