For three months, my life circled around a maybe.  For three months, I wanted something so bad, I dealt with so much that was thrown at me, for the chance to earn it.  For three months of blood, sweat, and tears, I worked harder than I ever had for these two minutes.  I had sacrificed everything within me to be the best.  I would hope I was good enough because I have a team that is depending on me.  For three months, I searched for perfection with my team.  I would go home in tears, when the hope I had would fade away.  I would go home in tears, when I lost hope in myself.  For three months, all that mattered was winning the beautiful, coveted, gold medal.

I am a cheerleader and part of a team that has twenty-two girls.  Together we would jump forty times, every day, into toe-touches and herkeys trying to get them higher.  We would sit in our splits counting into the hundreds trying to get them to the ground.  Our coach pushing us would be an understatement.  She wanted that medal for herself just as much as she wanted it for us.  She truly loved our team even though she never let up from her tough ways.  My trainer, Liv, was always there for us.  When my coach pushed us too hard, she would be there to protect us and was a voice on our side.

One week before competition we hadn’t finished our routine.  Out of the two minutes we needed to have choreographed, we only had thirty seconds done.  The stress to get it flawless was so high.  We had so much work to do.  It had taken two months to learn the first thirty seconds.  How was it possible to learn three times that, in a small fraction of the time?  While we were working on it, my coach said she wanted triple toe touches.  Considering the fact that my jumps are a weakness, my anxiety was filling up the room.  It only made it worse that I was placed front and center.  Over the week, I didn’t get it right once at practice.  I every time I messed it up, I would be screamed at and the stress level would go up.

On that Saturday, it was cheer-off.  All of my team hopped on a bus and went to our competition.  We practiced all morning.  When the time had come for us to take to mat, we got into a line and walked down a catacomb of hallways.  Before we went in to the giant gym full of eager fans, my palms were so sweaty and my coach looked like a wreck.  She reminded us to never stop smiling and not to drop our poms.

We entered the gym and every team’s audience was in there.  We walked forward in front of a blue wrestling mat.  I remember not being able to see anything farther then the judges table clearly as I stood there smiling. I could see my teams’ fans, dressed in our colors of red and gold, jumping around in the bleachers.

“You may take the mat,” spoke the DJ out of a giant speaker.  We walked into our first formation and put our heads down.  The music began the play and we began our routine.  Our first formation was a circle. We stood there with straight backs looking down. With the music, one at a time, we would lean forward and jerk our bodies back unto the ground.  We got up and moved into a smaller circle where we used our poms to create a wave that went around in a circle.  The crowd cheered loudly as we moved.  We were stiff, every motion was on time, and we were the definition of perfection.  Then the time came for me to go to the front and center.  I could see my coach straight in front of me.  She looked like a bright red Twizzler.  She was counting on her fingers that counts that went with the music and her eyes locked on me.  I focused on her, making the background a blur of team colors that didn’t matter.   My first toe touch was on time.  The moment I landed, I sprung out into my second.  We didn’t take our eyes of each other as I flew into my third.  As I began to come back down to earth, my heart didn’t.  The fake smiles that were plastered on my face became genuine as I knew we had won.   We ran as fast as we could off the mat.  The crowd didn’t stopped screaming and I threw one of my arms in the air with victory as we ran out.  When we reached our hallway, the tears coming out of all of our eyes didn’t stop.

I turned to Liv as she walked down the hall and squealed, “I did it liv! For the very first time I did it, on the mat!” She naturally gave me the biggest smile and the warmest hug.

We went back into the gym and sat on the bleachers.  As we watched the rest of the teams preform, I reflected on everything.  These girls I am with on my team, I love like sisters.  I realized I would never feel this happy again for a long time.  When all the teams had finished, every cheerleader, coach, and trainer went to sit on the mat.  My team got into a circle with our legs inside as we waited.  We were leaning forward nearly kissing our bruised knees.  My eyes were still teary and taking a small peek I looked up and searched for my mom in the sea of red and gold.  I found her maybe fifty feet away sitting courtside with my father.  He was looking at me with a proud grin.  The feeling of happiness ran through me knowing that he came.  I quickly looked back down as the announcer announced third place.  It wasn’t us.  I could hear the pulse in my head as he announced second place.  It wasn’t us.  My team quickly looked up at each other for a half second.  It was enough time to flash a small knowing smile.

“And now the moment we were waiting for.”  I could feel my finger being tightly squeezed harder and harder by the girls sitting next to me.  My eyes were shut so tight the tears stopped falling.  “First place…the Royal Oak Chiefs.”  And with those words, we shot up to the stars letting every emotion we had held in for the past three months be stapled on our faces.  We hugged each other and thanked each other for being amazing. For three months my team and I worked for this moment. Those three months were worth it.