I Got Beat Up in Marching Band...

Marching band has always been known to be a refuge for the outcasts, a safe place to be you and be as creative and different as your heart desires! I used to feel this way about marching band, I didn't feel the need to put on a smile and try to look beautiful for everyone around me. I felt like I could talk about the strangest things in the world and everyone would just accept me for who I was.

I was on the drumline and freshman year I was in love with our section leader, I just knew that he was the one for me. So, I was always early to everything and I worked extra hard to try to be the best one out there, just to impress this senior boy. Sophomore year came around and I had been so extra my freshman year that I was chosen to be the snare captain as a sophomore. This was awesome and I was super excited. Then, in a group chat someone said some nasty stuff and I didn't reprimand them and I got in a bunch of trouble. Because of this mistake, I was not chosen for a leadership position the following year, and that is when everything got bad.

Junior year honestly sucked. A sophomore replaced me as section leader, but I didn't really care all that much because I was genuinely happy for her. Well, she thought of me as a threat I guess, because she targeted me pretty heavily throughout the season. Soon the others were jumping in and doing the same. The other snare drummers started hitting me in the arms with their drumsticks whenever no one was looking and I would go home with huge bruises all over. Then, towards the end of the school year one of the boys picked me up by my arms in front of everyone and yelled in my face about touching his drums. (I had brushed my fingers along them as I had walked by, we all did this frequently.) I told him that he needed to put me down, but he didn't. After asking him three times to put me down I said, "If you do not put me down in three seconds I swear to you I will start screaming." After I said this he rolled his eyes and through me into all of the drum cases. I had finger print marks on my arms from how tightly he had been holding me. I decided that it was time to talk to the teacher.

After class I asked the band director if I could speak to him privately and he asked me if it was a life or death situation because he didn't feel like it. I told him that it was very important so he huffed and bropught me to the back room to talk. I told him what had happened and admittedly I was choking back tears. I showed him the finger print marks and explained that this was not the first incident. His response shocked me, he said, "Anna, don't you think that you'rs being a little bit sensitive right now? I know that Nate (the boy who threw me) would never do something like that."

After this incident I just went to class everyday and counted down the days for school to be out, on the last day of school I wrote a letter to the band directopr explaining why I was leaving and how I was so dissapointed in him. I made a copy, gave it to the school principle, and then said peace out!