Last year, in 2020, the Golden Regiment Marching Band had its annual “Midnight Madness” celebration. It was a chilly evening on the band field, especially for Rylee Woodruff and the rest of the color guard because they were barefoot since their costumes did not come with jazz shoes, as they had in prior years. Rylee explained that even though Covid-19 was limiting, they were lucky to have been able to still have a modified band season.  

Rylee deems Midnight Madness to be her best memory of 2020. That experience gave her perspective about how quickly time flies, especially as a high school student.  

As she celebrated with her senior friends who were members of the color guard all four years, she realized she only had one season left. She uses that inspiration to push herself, and she is going to give this season all she’s got. 

For Rylee, though this year has been filled with great memories, there were also a lot of hardships. Recently, she has been struggling with a cycle of stress and depression.  She explains that the more stress she feels, the less interest she has in completing work, which in turn causes her to get more stressed, and then she wants to sleep due to stress. She said that it’s not that she’s unhappy, she just feels stuck in that cycle of being stressed out and depressed. 

Luckily, Rylee has friends who have helped her. She feels that finding a group of friends with who you feel comfortable is important. Her friends have helped her during difficult times by being there to talk to her.  

This rut doesn’t prevent her from looking on the bright side, though. She feels that “you have to get through the low days to get to the highs.” Experiencing these low days has only helped her to appreciate the good ones even more. 

Although things have gotten worse from time to time, in Rylee’s world there is always a learning curve for everything. 

Through these memories of triumphant celebrations and battles over stress, overall Rylee has learned that “you definitely have to cherish the time you have now because you never know when it’s going to be gone.” whether that be friends, color guard, or anything that you’re passionate about be all in.