Stepping into a prom dress … and out of a box

A note about our month of MAYhem: We’re celebrating by stepping a little closer to the edge, maybe even a full-body experience outside our boxes and comfort zones. Here’s to the rebels, the rule breakers, the bits of disorder in all of us. Enjoy the MAYhem with Mary Kay, Marilyn, JoAnne, Mary and Penny as we abandon our strongholds for a few minutes, a few hours, even a day or more to live and learn and share it with you all. 

By Mary Kay Roth

I never went to my high school spring prom.  As a senior, I helped decorate the school gymnasium with hundreds of spring rainbows to match the theme of Colour My World, but in the traditional cast of characters portrayed in every high school movie, I was the shy, nerdy, kid – the one who doesn’t get invited to dances.   

Honestly, I didn’t mind. Except for one thing.  The dress.

Every spring since high school, I would wistfully catch sight of all the young women, strolling around the Haymarket on the evening of their proms, swathed in glitter and glam.  

And that’s why, earlier this week, just for kicks – after my granddaughters helped me shop at Goodwill for my very own $20 prom dress – I pulled on that sparkly, sequined gown and wore it for an entire day.

The morning started, of course, with my usual sunrise walk around Holmes Lake.

“You must have had some great night,” one jogger quipped with a wink.

“Definitely a different look for you.” 

“Whoa …”

“OK, I’m sure there’s a story here.”

After the walk, the dress stayed on – strolling around downtown Lincoln – shopping for groceries, where a couple women in line asked if they could get their prom dresses and spend the day with me – twirling around the front lawn with my granddaughters as we exploded into outrageous, bubbling laughter.  

You see, I grew up in a loving family with supportive parents, but with a mother who believed spontaneity was absolute taboo. When sentiments reached a certain threshold, common sense and reason moved in … because, after all, you could always read a good book.  And if you ever dared to let go or lose control, well, the world just might crack open and fall apart at the seams.  

Hence, when our Five Women Mayhem writers were challenged to do something curious this month and experience our blogs in a different way – reaching outside our box, outside our comfort zone – I considered the scandalous prospect of letting loose, letting go. 

Believe it or not, this didn’t come easily.

I’m guessing most people see me as the person who rockets down the slip-n-slide, chats with strangers, soars above the Serengeti in a hot air balloon.  

The truth is I can never quite loosen my grip.  I overthink. Stay safe. I’m hanging onto that hot air balloon for dear life. And sure, I can boogie around my living room, but find it terrifying to say yes to the sweet guy who wants to spin me around a dance floor.  

Ever since childhood I’ve had this one recurring dream: As rocks rain down upon me, I’m scaling a mountain, finally reach the top and peek over to the other side where a beautiful, inviting meadow awaits.  Yet I continue to keep a ferocious grip on that mountain. 

I wake up.  Having never let go.

In all honesty, that prom dress hung on a hanger in my bedroom for weeks as I procrastinated … in serious danger of chickening out. Then, one random morning this week, as the blog deadline neared, I shimmied into the sparkles – added glittery earrings and a huge fuzzy red coat (chilly outside) – and headed for Holmes where my friend Bethany met me with laughter. 

“This might seem stranger if it wasn’t you,” she said.  

Indeed, I did hike Holmes that morning in a prom dress – then took a walk around the Haymarket where I had watched all those fancy gowns pass by – eventually met my granddaughters for a promised date to skip through the sprinkler.

The real surprise, of course, was that my dress was only the beginning, because once you get out of the box, well, you can’t really put that genie back. 

The girls and I brushed our teeth, standing on one leg.  We all traded seats and sat in different places in the living room.  We found the silliest possible hats to wear.  We danced the chicken dance.

Somehow – the grapevine in our family is fierce – my niece, Holly, heard about the prom dress and begged to let her do my makeup.  So, this hippie woman who seldom wears anything but lip gloss, finally succumbed and even allowed the addition of – gulp – fake eyelashes.

I read a story in the New York Times, earlier this spring, specifically addressing The Joy of Letting Loose.  It spoke of the cop who takes a break from directing traffic to groove for the camera – the lady in the business suit who can’t help but hopscotch down the sidewalk.

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit,” the article concluded, quoting E.E. Cummings. 

Right now, however, I need to pause my blog for a moment of confession: I have worried about writing a column fixated on something as silly as a prom dress.  It seems rather inconsequential in a world where the sky is falling and so many important issues plague our lives.

But I also fear that if we miss the joy, we will miss the point. We will miss the wonder and surprise of touching something authentic in the human spirit,  those moments of total surrender – of exploding into outrageous, bubbling laughter.  

The true magic that happened on prom-dress day was not about any response from the outside world, but about what happened inside, where those outbursts of zaniness stirred something deep, a place of wild abandon that had always seemed just out of reach.

Today, almost anything seems possible.  Perhaps I could actually learn to tango. Step up to the microphone for karaoke. Finally write my book.  Forget Holmes Lake, hike the Camino de Santiago. 

At the close of my prom-dress experiment, dusk settled over the evening for a final sunset walk, eyelashes off, sequins strewn here and there throughout my house.  I’d successfully spent the day in tinsel and glitter, a day of letting loose. 

The world had certainly not fallen apart at the seams, but there was undeniably one big, glorious crack in the box that surrounded me, letting in light and joy … and perhaps even the promise of a spin around the dance floor at a high school prom.