Celebrate the Little Victories

     I don’t know about you, but I’m not one of those people who celebrate epic victories on a regular basis. I’m not a winner of gold medals or Academy Awards. My college essays aren’t earning me blue ribbons and my work at the newspaper isn’t gaining national recognition. But that doesn’t mean that we, as people, don’t crave at least a little special attention. We want to know that we’re important, that our hard work is going to pay off, that we have the ability to win at something.

     That’s why this weekend, at my school’s annual “Dorm Wars” (as I like to call them), I held nothing back. I wore purple war paint, plastered enough glitter in my hair that a shower still can’t get rid of it, and screamed so loud my peers questioned if it was actually possible to tear a vocal cord. My throat this morning seemed to tell me that yes, it felt pretty possible. At the end of the day, complete with tug-of-war, relays, and trivia, my dorm took home the victory. We screamed, chanted, hugged, and God only knows what. We ran around the gym like children, yelling no words in particular, seemingly unable to vocalize the happiness at this victory.

     What did we win? Just a trophy, one that sits in some back room that no one ever walks through. A quiet victory was won, one most people will never hear about. But for those few hours, we were victors. And you know what? It felt great.