As Good As It Gets

Finally! I can't tell you how exciting it is to wake up and realize that after weeks of dreaming and prepping and hoping for this day, it's finally here. We are in beautiful Dayton, OH. Somehow, in Dayton the grass is always greener, the sun is always warmer, the air is always cleaner, and life is just a bit brighter.

We arrived last night at a mere 11:30pm, much earlier than I anticipated and stumbled off the bus into the warm evening air at our home for the week, Athletes in Action retreat center; a Christian retreat center with a passion for athletics. A shower and a comfortable bed after 18 hours stuck on a bus can be simply awesome, just saying. I'm obviously getting a bit older because after 10 hours in a bus, it definitely starts to lose it's magic. But at least I'm with all my friends. That seems to make it more bearable.

Today we got to have a slow start which has been nice. After breakfast, we had a brief pad-out session and a run/stretch before attempting to play a round of volleyball. Needless to say, we weren't very good- but that's ok. It didn't matter.  At least WGI isn't a volleyball competition! This afternoon we will start into our last week of tweaks and repetitions and last minute changes before Prelims on Thursday, and depending on our placement, Finals on Friday!. The competition is getting so close we can start to feel it. Like a little ember in our stomachs starting to build to a flame. As a snare drummer it's so obvious how in the last week our playing has gotten so much better and stronger. The show is finally starting to feel ready, where only days ago I wasn't so sure it was ready for a world wide audience like this. 
Is it good enough? Will we play the way the show demands? I wasn't sure, but now I am. We are ready  It's time for us to step out with our message and see where we stand and let the chips fall where they may. 
As our percussion director always says, "the numbers really don't matter". In the end, that's out of our hands. What is in our hands, is the do the absolute best we can at what we do and trust the work we've done. 
It's time for Perpetual Cycles to be more than just our show. There's a story there that it's now our time to tell. We had te opportunity to mature with it and watch it grow. Sometimes so frustrated we wanted to quit - sometimes unsure wether it would ever work - sometimes so excited we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. But now it's ready and it's time to be shared, and I can't tell you how excited I am about it! 
I don't feel all that worried anymore. We're all here together in Dayton doing what we love, with who we love. It doesn't get much better than that!