Milestones & Memories
Our middle child is graduating in a few short weeks. I know I've talked about it on here before (recently, in fact). This weekend, however, was Prom. These past few weeks have been chock full of nostalgia for me, and Prom brought up even more, and this past weekend, my wife and I talked about all the stuff we were feeling around that particular time in our lives, and seeing how vastly different the generation(s) we are raising are going about things.
Prom was a big deal for me. I was excited to go, but I almost didn't go. I had a meltdown, maybe a week or two before (I can't remember the timeline of exactly when it happened), where I was highly emotional and ended up crying with my head in my locker, with my date (my friend Angela's little brother) trying to figure out what was up. I really liked her little brother. I thought it was cute, and we always had fun together. I don't know what he was feeling at the time - probably confused.
I was, unknowingly at the time, having an autistic meltdown because I had an idea of what I wanted my dress to be in my head, couldn't find "the" dress, was also trying to figure out logistics because my date didn't drive, my Mom wasn't necessarily supportive of the whole prom thing and didn't understand how big of a deal it was (I don't think she went to prom and I'm not even sure they had a prom where she went to school - she didn't talk much about high school.). I had everything else set up- the hair appointment, a fancy makeup lesson with my creative writing teacher and newspaper sponsor who also doubled as a makeup sales consultant as a side hustle (teachers have never been paid enough money in my opinion), and I even had help to paint my nails. My Mom didn't give me money to pay for a manicure like so many of the other girls in our school that I envied (I sooooo wanted acrylics! I thought they were so fancy!), but a friend of my Mom's who owned a salon (she also did my hair for prom - a partial updo with baby's breath flowers tucked into it) had one of the girls that also worked in the salon paint my nails after she saw what a horribly rushed job I had done. Side note- I am still really impatient when I paint my nails, but now I use the quick-dry nail polish, and it doesn't come out too horribly! At least I don't flood my cuticles anymore!
Three days before Prom, after continuously scouring the local mall for a dress and finding nothing I liked, my friend Angela (the same one whose little brother I went to prom with) encouraged me to check out one of our other local malls that I had not checked yet. That particular mall, Scottsdale Mall, was in the process of dying. The larger mall in the area drew more shoppers to it, and in my opinion only had a couple of things going for it. The Hacienda restaurant (which I thought was, at the time, far superior to the one on our side of town - I think it's just because it was further away from home and I liked driving at the time), Alley Oops restaurant - a 50s themed diner with individual juke boxes at the tables and smash burgers before smash burgers were popular, a fairly nice movie theater, and a much larger Claire's boutique than the one at the main mall (University Park Mall) that had a lot more prom type jewlery to choose from. Scottsdale also had a few boutique stores for teenage girls to shop at, and one of those stores was DEB.
So, on Wednesday, three days before prom, immediately after school, Angela and I drove out to Scottsdale Mall with a singular objective in mind: to find me my prom dress. I knew what my other friends were wearing. Mickie was wearing a forest green dress, Kimberly was wearing a maroon number that was tea length, and off the shoulders, Katie (my friend Matt's date, who was on the periphery of our friend group) had actually made her own dress, and she said it was a Cinderella-style number. I can tell you right now that Katie is probably one of the most talented and creative people that I have been fortunate enough to know in my life, and that dress was almost an exact replica of Cinderella's. That girl nailed it. She makes me wish I had listened to my Mom and learned how to sew. I honestly can't remember what I wanted in a dress, but as we walked into DEB, my eyes widened as we were greeted by a sea of tafetta, satin, silk, organza, tulle, and velvet. We immediately headed to the rack that had dresses in my size and started looking. In less than 5 minutes, I had "the" dress in my hands.
"This is the one!" I remember exclaiming as I pulled it from the rack. I checked the tag to make sure it was in my size. BINGO! My size! Angela excitedly told me to try it on, and we headed for the checkout counter for someone to unlock the fitting room for us. I tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror.
The dress had a white lace and sequin triangle halter top with a column style skirt and a slit on one side that came up just past my knee. I felt sooooo grown up. I looked so grown-up. And then I looked at the price tag (I hadn't bothered to do so until now).
I will be the first to admit that I have often, throughout my life, been somewhat oblivious to reading price tags. I also learned that if I really wanted something, I needed to be able to negotiate and justify why I needed said item. Of course, I needed a dress for prom, and it was a formal event. Up until this point, I hadn't really needed a formal dress, and while I did have one sitting in the closet that had belonged to my Mom back when she had been a concert pianist, it really wasn't my style. The long story short there is that back when I was a sophomore, she got a bug up her butt for some reason that I needed to have the dress that she wore when she was performing with the Panama National Philharmonic tailored to fit me. I have no idea why. One day she just told me to get into the car, that we were going to have her dress altered to fit me and off we went to the seamstress.
Her dress was lovely, and I have always loved seeing pictures of her in it, but the dress is far from my personal style. It was a 1950s, very poofy, aqua color that I found very difficult to move in. It was perfect for her simply having to walk onto the stage, sit, and it draped over the piano bench most perfectly. It exuded class. Like I said, I loved seeing pictures of my Mom in the dress. I loved the pictures of her on stage playing the piano. I loved the pictures of her, sitting on a sofa surrounded by flowers with the dress draped around her after the concert. She was so young and happy and vibrant in that dress. I understand how she would want to pass that dress down. But it wasn't me.
This dress, the black and white, minimalist yet still what I thought was sexy (and oh, did I want to be perceived as sexy! I look back and kinda laugh at that now) dress... THIS was my style. This is what I wanted. And it was under $100. In fact, it was $89! My Mom would be thrilled that I found something for under $100! I came out and showed Angela, and she was as excited as I was. My mind was racing on the next steps. I didn't have money on me, so I asked the cashier if she could hold the dress. She said she could hold it until the close of business. My Mom had students (she taught Piano) until an hour before they closed. I told the cashier that I would be back for the dress and if we could not make it in today, that I would call her and let her know to hang onto the dress, explaining that my Mom was working. She was very nice and said she would hang it in the back for me and could give me until the next day if I called.
I dropped Angela off at her house, told Pete that I had found a dress, and then raced home. I was lucky enough to catch my Mom between students. I told her that I had found a dress, that it was $89, at Scottsdale, and begged her to please, please, please go after she finished teaching so we could buy the dress. She informed me that we could go, but she needed to approve the dress first. Her next student came in, and I went off to my room to attempt to get some of my schoolwork done.
Any chance of actually being a productive student flew out the window. I tried to calm down, but different scenarios ran through my brain. What if she didn't like the dress? What if she didn't want to pay for it? What if she decided that I couldn't go to prom? Would my dress shoes even match my dress? They were black suede, and the perfect dress was more velvet. I pulled the shoes out of my closet so I could take them with me. My Mom would have to see the full ensemble. The thought of wearing a strapless bra even crossed my mind, so she could see everything put together. During the agonizing hours between when I got home and when we were to leave, I even formulated a plan b and called my Dad at the college where he worked to see if he would pay for the dress if Mom refused. Of course, he said yes and to tell my Mom that he would reimburse her. My mind was eased, but I was still excited and simply could not calm down.
The hours and minutes ticked by slowly. I distracted myself by listening to music and reading comic books. I could not even begin to think of the math homework I was procrastinating on. Finally, her day ended. I burst out of my room, grabbed her purse and car keys, and brought them to her. She went to the bathroom. I felt like she was taking forever. She took her time getting ready to go. I was impatient. I felt like I was being tortured. I was probably not being tortured, but to a young, unmedicated AuDHD kid that is incredibly excited? Oh yeah, totally felt like torture. We got in the car and headed to Scottsdale Mall. We arrived 20 minutes before they closed.
I walked up to the cashier, she got the dress out for me and set up the dressing room. I put on the dress, I put on my dress shoes, I walked out. My Mom seemed less than thrilled. I explained my vision to her. Flowers in my hair with an updo, white elbow-length opera gloves, and to top it off - could I please borrow her costume pearl and diamond earrings and bracelet? Moments passed. My Mom asked me if I was absolutely sure and if there was any other dress I wanted to try on? She never really liked the fact that I wore so much black throughout my school career. I said yes, that this was the dress, I was excited, I was almost in tears because I didn't think I was going to get it, and finally... She said yes. It was one of the few occasions my Mom said yes to a dress that I liked. There was no commentary about how it was too "sexy" or anything like that. I squealed in excitement, telling her thank you thank you thank you over and over again. I changed back into my everyday clothes and we went to the checkout. Immediately afterwards we went to JC Penney and found the white opera-length gloves. My Mom was starting to get excited as well. It was one of the few times that I saw her excited about one of my events.
On the Saturday of Prom she had an event in the morning and I drove myself to my hair and makeup appointment, but she was home and helped me get ready. After I put on the gloves, she helped me adjust them and showed me how to take them off how a "lady" would take them off. She also loaned me one of her fancy black purses with a faux diamond accent on the snap (I still have it to this day) and then had two surprises for me. The first surprise, she announced that it was time that I had my own jewlery. She brought out a box from JCPenney (she loved shopping there and honestly, they had some pretty decent costume jewelry for special occasions like this) that held a pair of fake pearl and diamond earrings that were more modern than hers and a matching diamond bracelet (also fake). She then informed me that I could not wear my leather jacket because it was not elegant enough for the occasion and walked the closet in the computer room and brought out the fur shrug that her father had given her when she was a teenager, performing with orchestras. My Mom was letting me use her fur!! She didn't even use her fur! It stayed in it's protective garment bag and I think I had only seen her wear it once when I was maybe 4 years old? To say I was shocked is an understatement.
In that moment, I felt like the most important person in the world. I put the earrings on, my Mom helped me with the bracelet (over the opera gloves, of course), she gave me some pocket money and helped me par down to the bare essentials to put in the very small black purse she let me borrow. Then, she wrapped the fur around my shoulders and said, "Wear it like this. Off your shoulders." It was a moment of pure joy between my mom and me. She seemed proud. I honestly don't have very many memories of her like that.
Prom, itself, was a blur. Kimberly came over with her date and my date (we were all going in one car together). We posed for pictures in front of a fancy wooden screen and my Mom took a picture of me standing next to and then playing at her piano. Afterwards, we went to a local park for the other mom's to take pictures. We opted to have dinner at a local diner called Honkers where mostly older people went so we could avoid the crowds at some of the more fancy restaurants we knew other prom-goers would be. The entire time we were at Honkers, we kept yelling at Mickie "CLEVELAND!" because the front of her dress was slightly bigger and slipped down, showing the top of her bra. After that, we headed to the prom, held at the Century Center, which was a beautiful venue located next to the St. Joseph River.
We danced until prom ended, took the gratuitous prom photo in front of the cheesy backdrop, drank obviously spiked punch in moderation and then decided that we would all go back to our places to change clothes, make a Blockbuster Video run, and watch movies. We were wired, full of excitement, and on a emotional high that none of us really wanted to give up.
My Mom, who was surprisingly awake, was perfectly fine with the plan we came up and just told us to not be too loud. Kimberly, Angela, and I quickly changed and drove to the video store and ended up renting First Knight (with Sean Connery and Richard Gere - a King Arthur, Lancelot, Gweneviere romance). The boys arrived back at my Mom's house shortly after and we all invaded the basement, throwing all the blankets and pillows we could on the floor so we could be as comfortable as possible. Eventually, the night grew long and we all fell asleep. It was my first co-ed sleepover and I was amazed that my Mom allowed it.
The next morning we all woke up to wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen. My Mom had made a feast of french toast, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. We all stumbled up the stairs, amazed at what was going on. My Mom was not necessarily the most... caring person in the world? In fact, I was surprised she hadn't come down the stairs screaming for every single boy that was there (of which there were several) to get out and then yelling at me that I was grounded until graduation. But she just went with it. She was kind and loving and caring and asked us all about how prom was. We told stories, shared and laughed and planned what we wanted to do that day, not wanting to end our party. Were we tired? Absolutely. But we were also teenagers and we wanted to enjoy ourselves as much as possible. We were also well aware that our senior year was wrapping up and soon we would be graduating. After that, we would all be off to college and who knew what that would bring? We wanted to spend as much time with each other as we could. My Mom seemed to recognize that and for once, she was okay with it.
Prom and that particular weekend was filled with surprises and great memories. It is one of those rites of passage that I think everyone should experience. There are so few times in your life when you get to dress up in formal wear and feel like a princess (or a prince for that matter). My son going to prom is a reminder to me not just that my son is growing up but that he's becoming a man. While I have always given my kids the freedom to express themselves and they are so much more responsible than I was at their age, I realize that they still need their Mom. Looking back, I realize that I was taught a very important lesson by my Mom that weekend... The lesson is sometimes you just have to take a step back and when they're ready, you just gotta make them a really good breakfast to give them the energy to go out and conquer the world. Kids will ask you what's for dinner, but they don't ask you what's for breakfast. Go ahead and make them something tasty. They'll thank you for it. AND if their friends are over (and it's perfectly okay if the boys stay over with the girls, you just need to have a little faith and trust in them), include them in the breakfast. They will all thank you for it. I am incredibly happy to have this memory of my Mom and of my friends.
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