December 6, 1997

Since we're on a roll with the photonostalgia... Funny: How I level out at the belt loop of my date for Senior Dance.

Funnier: How I sent his girlfriend a note, most likely with stickers on it, through the homeroom mail to ask her permission to take her man to Senior Dance. Even though I had already asked him. Not because I was ballsy. He was just in our group and he had a car and I knew him from grade school. He was so nice and very ADHD. You can almost ascertain these things just by looking at the picture.

Still Pretty Funny: The sequined dress, bought by my mother at the bargain basement, probably pulled from some rag bag, for $10. I brought it to be cleaned afterwards at Uncle Driveby's dry cleaner and he gave it back to me with an envelope containing all of the sequins that fell out in his machine. They had been glued on.

Less Funny: How my arm is so spindley it looks like it could snap in half if someone hugged me too hard.

Less Funny Still: How I can tell even from the picture where my hair had been falling out.

Not Really Funny At All: Knowing how much I weighed at that time and how much pain I was in after my dad moved out just a few weeks prior. Knowing that my anger and pain were going to get much worse before the tide pulled back in, and how much subsequent anguish I would cause my mother and sister as a result.

But I Still Have to Smile: Thinking about this one night in high school that I can only remember vaguely in which I was neither happy nor sad but a little bit aware that being a teenager was not going to last forever.

And Now I Smile: Because I'm No Longer There. I have a date to the dance and he doesn't belong to any other girl at school. I'm not angry, nor in chronic pain. I don't have to shop from the rag bag. I'm a curvy petite. I only lose hair when my baby girl yanks it out. And most importantly, I know my Savior who has redeemed me in every way.