A Prom

Prom We all remember what was happening last year, right? I was at home with my entire family. We were attempting to finish up the school year via Zoom and trying to stay healthy and safe.

This year is different. Many (but not enough) of us are getting vaccinated or are vaccinated and we’re slowly re-emerging into our lives.

The girls have been in school all year. Olivia was quarantined as a close contact once this year, way back in October. Alyssa, somewhat to her own annoyance, was never quarantined. She continued to work, go to school, hang out with a select number of friends (many of whom also worked with her) and basically has lived her life.

And on the first of May, she got to go to her senior prom.

They sort of had a prom last year. If you call getting dressed up, meeting at a nearby hotel, having dinner served by your parents and then getting prizes a prom. I mean, there were no outside guests allowed, only juniors and seniors that attend our school were allowed. If you were lucky enough to be dating either a junior or senior and were a junior or senior yourself, well, hey, you got to go with a date. It was fine. They were all lovely.

But this year…they got to have a ‘real’ prom. They got dressed up, they went to each other’s houses for pictures, the prom was held at the school. The junior moms decorated the gym and there was dinner and dancing in the cafeteria (our school calls it the ‘auditoria’ which is stupid and I won’t use that word other than to point out that it’s stupid.)

Olivia was a little worried on Thursday about where she’d each lunch because the cafeteria had been overtaken by the juniors and seniors for prom.

After the ‘social hour’, during which family and friends could come (if they had a ticket because there’s still a pandemic out there) and sit in the bleachers in the gym and each couple would be announced and proceed around the gym, stopping at three different points for pictures.

It was cute.

And fun.

And the senior class, because they’re lovely people, voted the exchange student the prom queen this year. She’s so sweet and fun and I’m so happy for her. She’s from Italy and I hope that her ‘abroad’ experience hasn’t been too awful, seeing as she’s stuck in freaking Edon, Ohio, population 850+ give or take 10. Talk about a disappointment.

But like I said, she’s fun and seems to be making the best of her “American” experience. She was a cheerleader for football and basketball. She had a supporting lead role in the musical. She’s running track and just putting herself out there. It’s more than I can say I did my senior year and I was still in the same school I’d started at when I was five. So…perspective.

I feel for the seniors of 2020 who missed out on all of this. I know most of them have moved on and sure, they have quite the story to tell but it still sucks. They’ll never get their high school senior year back. And I feel for the parents of those seniors. They missed out on so much too.