Homecoming: Why High School is Both Great and Terrible

I am long past the days of school dances and lunch table politics. Or so I thought. This year, for the first time, I will have a high schooler. How the actual hell did that happen? Without warning, she reminded me that she needed me to pick up my sister’s old homecoming dresses so she could wear one. She’d been trolling her old Instagram photos and had already decided which one she wanted.

Side note: The Auntie Boutique is my absolute favorite store. My sister is only 11 years older than my daughter and the same height and body type, so they like and can wear very similar clothing. I recommend this store 100% if you can manage to find one. Unfortunately for my siblings, their kids will have no Auntie Boutique because I have no style and my high school dresses are woefully out of date. I do have an Auntie Book Emporium, so maybe some of them will be readers. We do what we can. Don’t worry, I won’t tell them about that VC Andrews book you’re hiding, or is it Sarah J Maas now?

All 3 of my kids love to look at our old high school photos and laugh and laugh at how silly and young we look. The thought that their dad and I, who had our first date at the 10th grade homecoming, were ever young, is hilarious. It’s like we sprung into being middle-aged, weird, and cringy. Well jokes on them. I was a nerdy, weird child, too. But even those of us who didn’t look like we stepped out of Dawson’s Creek (those kids were like 35-year-old high schoolers, seriously) put on our best shimmer eye shadow and unblended foundation to hit up a mildly decorated high school cafeteria for Homecoming. If you haven’t seen the Jamie French 2000’s makeup tutorial you are missing out. I’m honestly embarrassed by the accuracy. I had that same damn foundation.

We rolled up, dropped off by mom most years, to a room full of sweaty teens dripping with angst. I swear you could smell the anxiety and crippling self-conciousness. The room would be ringed with several teachers chosen, I can only assume as some form of punishment, to make sure we behaved? Didn’t start riots? Kept the drug use to a minimum? Honestly, there is no amount of money that could make that job tolerable. Somehow, as teens, we ignored them and unabashedly danced like maniacs, only to act like we didn’t make out directly in front of them when we saw them in Calc on Monday. Inevitably, there would be several breakups, at least 10 girls crying in the stairwell, and packs of single guys attempting to start a pickup game in the gym. The whole thing was an exercise in madness. I’m not saying I didn’t have fun, but I am saying I don’t miss high school.

The thing is, life comes full circle on you and BOOM! your kid is going to the dance. Now I’m on the other side. I’m the mom dropping off the kids. Then I just go home and hope it isn’t my daughter crying in the stairway (although that is a cathartic environment for a good cry). Is she going to have a good time? Will someone ask her to dance? Will SHE start the riots? (Probably not, she isn’t enough of a people person to organize a riot.) Honestly, I just want her to have a blast. But I will be at home worried about it. This mom thing is not all sunshine and diet cokes.

I want all my kids to love their high school experience. I just hope they know the best parts of their lives are still ahead of them.