by Natalie Fitts

She had made it. She was on the team.

She had met the coaches. She had seen the practice space. She knew the performance schedule. She was ready to start practicing.

But she had not met her new team.

As freshman Molly Riffel sat on the bleachers in Goppert Center just a week before school began, her 18 varsity and JV dance team teammates, who had made the team months earlier, were only a swing of a door away.

She had only danced with one other group of girls her entire life. And they had been the same girls for 3 years.

The girls on her competition team at Priscilla and Dana’s School of Dance were her best friends. She carpooled the 40 minute drive to the studio with them at least four days a week. She then practiced about 20 hours a week with them. During competition season, she traveled to new cities with them almost every weekend. She even hung out with them in the little free time they all had.

Being home-schooled all her life, dance and the friends she made from dance were basically all she knew.

But all that she knew was about to be changed.

Sitting in the huge gym by herself, she realized just how hesitant she was to be joining a new team at a new school with new girls.

Would she find new best friends to take the place of the ones she said good-bye to just days before? Would they like dancing with each other? Would they even accept this “surprise” new girl?

But when she walked into the weight room and heard one of her new teammates say, “Aww, Molly! This is so awesome! Congratulations!” she realized she belonged.

She realized she had no reason to ever be hesitant.