It's more than a band, it's a (more-than-averagely dysfunctional) family. Legit.

As anyone who knows anything about me knows, I'm a band nerd. I put more time and energy into marching band than anyone knows. Except for my fellow bandies, of course.
I'm a sophomore this year (a junior in band), and I play flute in my high school's marching band. Band isn't a seasonal thing. It's year-round.

Fall: marching band.
Winter: pep band.
Spring: concert band.
Summer: conditioning for marching band.

I know, I'm such a nerd. But if you've never been a part of a band or a huge team, then you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

As the title of this post states, it's more than a band, it's a family. An extremely dysfunctional family. But there are countless people in that family that I can hug, say hi to, and expect a shoulder to cry on, on a daily basis if necessary. I'm not exactly sure how else to say it. But here's an "anecdote" (?) I wrote at the last basketball game of the season.

"18-19. The current score. But I see so much more than the score, the players, the game. I see my family. The people that mean the most to me. The circle of (intimidating) guys I wish I knew, the exes standing with their used-to-be other halves, and their current other halves. The little boy at the drumset and the flash of silver as an instrument catches the light. The couple in the corner, actually talking, nothing more. The orange, the orange, oh and the orange. The sound of the buzzer and the sound of my family coming together to make my favorite sounds. Oh, wait. The score's tied now. I see the cheerleaders now. The almost couples, the enemies, the best friends. Last game of the season. How many more days til the next season starts?

The shouting of correct pronunciations, and sex slave!

The looks and the laying on the ground, not able to breathe,

but only because we were crying from laughing too hard.

Possible groping and the fake cries of hypothetical "don't touch me!"'s."

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The feeling of closeness and hatred that you experience from this band cannot be described as anything but a family. A huge family. And families are the type of thing where age only matters if you're really the oldest. You can pretend and make up fancy names (like freshmores), but it never matters in the end. See, I started marching with the high school as an 8th grader. This happened because they had more spots than they did bodies, and here I was. Now, all of the 8th graders that started early, including me, like to pretend that we have more power because of this.

So not true.