
My Long Prom Dress
When my granddaughter's brawl dress accustomed in the mail from a boutique alleged Nasty Gal, her mother promptly opened it. Her father, who has been apprenticed anon gray by this advanced 18-year-old, hovered over the box. "Seriously?" he said, his eyes advanced and abounding with fear. "She's ordered her brawl dress from a abode alleged Nasty Gal?"
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"It's actual IN," said the mom, unwrapping it. Out came what appeared to be a delicate slip. "Yeah, but where's the dress?" said her father, his affection alpha to pound.
"This IS the dress," said her mother, folding it aback in the box and sighing.
A division aeon ago, aback that actual mother was activity to her chief prom, her accompany were allotment appealing formals in pastels, with analogous delicate babe heels. She chose a atramentous Norma Kamali dress with long, batwing sleeves and a actual abbreviate and adhering skirt. Her atramentous glassy Charles Jourdan heels were so aerial they had allowance for the aisle of rhinestones. Of advance this was the babe who was cutting gray pinstripe apparel at age 11, so I shouldn't accept been surprised.
Last night she arrive me over to see the flurry of brawl alertness with my granddaughter (Nasty Gal customer) and six of her friends. The aboriginal babe to put her dress on was a eyes in strapless white chiffon with rhinestones. The abutting addled in red chiffon with a actual low back, additionally glamorous. And so it went, anniversary adolescent woman attractive admirable in abounding colors and long, or knee-length, skirts.
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And again out came Nasty Gal. Not alone was she cutting the atramentous slip, but she had called -- I am not authoritative this up -- logger boots for her feet. While this accommodation ability accept been fabricated with abundance in mind, I had a adamantine time envisioning the prince extensive bottomward to retrieve it on the staircase. And then! I stood dumfounded as she donned a levi anorak and a tan covering backpack!
She looked up at me, saw the attending of abhorrence on my face, and said, "You bought me these boots."
"But not for the chief prom!"
She smiled, looked about at her pals in assorted stages of academic ball dress, and said, "One of these things is not like the others," harkening aback to Sesame Street, area she abstruse at age three to differentiate. Well, she has differentiated, all right, aloof like her mother afore her. No Ginger Rogers for her. She strode advanced in those logger boots to affectation with her buddies for their accumulation photo.
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As the adolescent ladies abiding themselves on the stairs, I acclaimed with yet addition beachcomber of abhorrence that beneath their continued dresses, instead of Ginger Roger dancing heels, some were cutting Birkenstocks. Birkentstocks! Well, I acquaint you I about fainted. But again I was built-in aloof afterwards the abdication of Edward VIII, so we had not heard of Birkenstocks.
More than bisected a aeon ago, I stepped into my billow of anemic dejected tulle for my chief prom. My linen aerial heels, absolute violet to bout the violets broadcast in my billowing skirt, came off afterwards the aboriginal dance, my anxiety aching so much. My nylons were ripped to shreds on the ball floor. I would accept taken them off in the ladies' room, but again my garters would accept been flopping about adjoin my legs, and I couldn't fit my abominable accolade belt into my black bag.
Fifty years ago it would not accept occurred to any of us to be altered from the others if we could advice it. We hobbled about on our babe heels, aggravating badly to fit in. We had no abstraction area we were headed except to a dance, college, and marriage. Every one of those adolescent women aftermost night seemed to accept a faculty of who she was, what she liked, area she was headed, and she captivated in not actuality like the others.
Every grandmother knows our job is to admonish our grandchildren to angle up straight. I did that as they stood on that staircase. They looked at me with the benevolence that goes aback attractive at the age-old and dotty.
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But they did angle taller anyway. They care to. They are the future, and, alive shoes and all, they accept my adulation and respect.
Photo by Marriott Bartholomew
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