I think it's prom season.
All the style bloggers I follow are getting reminiscent about their own fabulous memories, posting pictures, talking about prom as the BEST NIGHT EVER.
So I have a secret to share: I didn't go to my prom.
Okay, I went to one. Junior year. Made my dress. Had a boa that matched perfectly. It was one of the first times I'd ever really felt pretty. And it was amazingly fun.
Until I got there. I got to dress up, which was amazing in itself. Dinner was great. They forgot my food, and so I didn't end up paying for it (and eventually, yes, did eat). I went with three other girls who were some of my closest friends at the time.
But the dance? Meh.
I didn't have a date, and maybe that contributed to it. So, at an event when the playlist was weighted heavily toward couples getting close on the dance floor, I spent a lot of time sitting on that floor. It's not like I had anything better to do. Even my single girl friends found a handful of single guys to dance with, but not me.
So when Senior Prom rolled around, in all its glory, I opted out. A couple of my friends skipped with me, and though I can't speak for them, I have to say that I do not -- for even one second -- regret the decision.
People have said that high school, or college, held the best years of their lives. If that's true, then I am sad for them. Life, or the enjoyment of life, shouldn't end at graduation. Most of us have decades to live after we receive our diplomas.
High school wasn't bad for me. It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible. College was better, most of it was pretty amazing.
But I have to say that life continues to get better and better year after year. Possibly because I'm making it that way. Life, at any stage, is good, so why waste it?
I'm not sure if this speaks more to my eternal optimism, my vanity–as expressed by my love of dressing to the nines and hitting the town for dinner– or just to the fact that I felt bound by the unwritten "rules" that governed a high school existence, but I went to almost every one of my Proms and Valentine Swirls (our Sweetheart Swirl was a Sadie-Hawkins-style formal that replaced a formal homecoming, since my high school didn't have home sports teams). Also, since my high school was so small and therefore we'd lose money if we didn't invite underclassmen and middle schoolers, that means I had 6 years with two opportunities per year.
ReplyDeleteI had dates to two, both times to Swirl, which meant I asked them myself. But I kept going to them even when I didn't have a date, and was also miserable during said slow dances.
All of this is to say that I love your attitude about life getting better every year! Love love love it. I am, similarly, trying to make it that way for me, too. Good luck to both of us.
Oh, and as a side note... being a bridesmaid, it turns out, is kind of like Prom: you get to dress up with your friends, you get to have a fancy dinner, you even get to dance sometimes. But I will be the first to declare that I had 200% more fun being a bridesmaid than I ever did at Prom... it just meant so much more.
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