Band Mom

I'm now recovered from spending a 4 day weekend with my daughter's high school drumline/jazz band/color guard programs in Wildwood, NJ.  It was a very busy, exhausting and rewarding weekend.  Many of the kids on this trip were in more that one of those groups.  My daughter plays in both the drumline and jazz bands.  For those kids the weekend was filled with rehearsals and competitions.  Except for meal breaks those who shared that schedule spent 4 days at the beach and only got near it when walking in a group to and from competitions, until the last day when they were give 3 hours off.  In general I am very proud of how most of those kids handled their very busy schedules and still had a great time.  My daughter, like most, would have liked more "down time" to get to the boardwalk/amusement piers but still felt the weekend was completely worth it.

I also admire the hard work and dedication of the instructors and band parents who took off of work, paid for their weekend and spent it on duty around the clock.

The only real down side from my perspective was observing some of the oldest students try to assert their independence and show their maturity by ignoring the rules and deciding that what they wanted to do was more important that the rules set down for the group.  Some lessons are hard to learn, and hard to teach, yet what would life be without them?  Why is it when we have seniority, we so often feel that we merit special treatment? 

I think back to being in high school and even college and thinking that my friends and I had achieved maturity only to be thwarted by adults who did not agree.  Maturity is relative.  Every stage of life brings new levels of maturity, and as we achieve more we often demand more respect for it.  Yet those who are "ahead of us" often look down and fail to recognize the new level of maturity is deserving of the respect being demanded.  I have often observed that those who demand respect are the least likely to have earned it or to be given it. 

We are all a product of the choices we make in life.  We end up with a life largely based on a foundation laid when we were much younger, by the choices, good and bad, that we made long ago. Yet it is not just the choices we make that control our destinies, but how we react to the circumstances those choices bring about.  A bad choice can cause pain and frustration, but in the end it is how we deal with that pain and frustration that sets us up for what comes later.

I would like to think that I try to make good choices, but hope that when my choices are bad that I can at least learn from them and move forward in a new and positive direction.