Prama

Prama

If you have not experienced it, you may have consoled someone or seen someone experiencing it. It starts out about a month before the big last dance of a senior’s year.

The signs are streaked mascara, huddled ladies hugging, an ecstatic smile, a boy carrying a rose in school looking a tad nervous, or a car with a painted Will you go to prom with me? in the high school parking lot.

Marking my twentieth prom this year, I do have to admit girls are so much smarter than when I was in high school. If a girl really wants to go to prom, she can find girl friends that have decided not to suffer through the night alone. They prep together. They look beautiful. They go out to dinner. They enter the prom and dance, giggle and laugh. From what I have noticed, a girl who goes with her girl friends does not end up in the ladies room crying. They go to After Prom. Days later, they are still laughing and pouring over the pictures they took of the evening.

I commented on the girl in the ladies room crying. This young lady has sometime decided this was going to be the best night of her life. Her expectation of this night most likely was unreachable in the area of romance and fun. All this depended on a high school boy who somehow was supposed to know how to act sophisticated and romantic over night. As the young lady has spent her day getting ready, he most likely started getting dressed an hour before he was supposed to pick her up. There is a good chance his mother ordered the flowers for the evening. He did; however, with friends make arrangements for dinner and bought the prom tickets at school. But still, while she was expecting the bachelor with the rose, she has in reality Scott or Jimmy whose mom just helped him with his tie.

I wish I could tell every girl to lighten up and just go and have fun. To wear shoes they can really dance in and not have to take them off every time they get a chance. To look for ways to save and not spend so much because it adds pressure to have fun. But in the meantime, I will carry tissue for the little girl in the ladies room.