Preparations for my daughter’s senior prom have me reminiscing.

I recently found myself in a mall, in a prom dress store. I didn’t know there were such places. I guess they also sell wedding and bridesmaids dresses, but the quantity of glitter and the high slits on the gowns suggest prom is the target market.

I waited outside the dressing lounge with my daughter’s boyfriend and the other males banished from the inner sanctum, eager to see which easter-egg-colored confection would emerge next. It was boring outside, but a harried mom, running to get a different size for her kid, called out “there’s so much going on in there! So much!” It’s one of a few times I’ve wished I was really a mom, allowed in the dressing room and part of the action. In our Berkeley schools I’ve been included with and welcomed by the moms, so I’ve had plenty of time being a mom, but malls are outside the Berkeley bubble I guess. Way outside.

In fact malls are so far outside the bubble that it got me thinking about 1981, when I was a high school junior and I went to the prom with my friend Bill. I was a “fill in” since his girlfriend was home sick. We were in the choir, so had tuxes already, and I had a ruffled shirt, white with blue stitching, and a bow tie. Bill thought it was a laugh, two guys eating at Arby’s then going to the dance. I always enjoyed hanging around with him, and we had silly fun, but it was a little more complicated for me, as I was in love with him.

One of the things the early 80’s closet allowed was for a high school kid to pretend to be gay “as a joke.” There was relatively little danger people would believe it, as gay was on the cultural radar, but at that time in that place seemed like gay was somewhere else. It couldn’t be you, here. I was practicing for the role. Auditioning. I could pretend to be pretending, while letting some people know I really meant it. Or I thought I could. Frankly seeing my own teens go through things makes me suspect that the plain truth was written on my face. But the cultural taboo of it was enough that many people I knew very well didn’t see that I was in love with this boy, then that one. That I followed Magnum P.I. much more closely than The Bionic Woman. (Be still, my Tom Selleck heart.)

Years later I’d learn that Bill had more complicated feelings about it than I knew, but in the moment I could tell he was being particularly goofy in part to deflect the stars in my eyes. As the kids say, cringe! The events that followed are a bit of a blur; there was a drunken proclamation of love (me), met with a year of silence (him). For some reason I went, wearing a chicken suit, to his house to try and talk with him, but ended up in tears. There was other drama, of course, and lots of players. All of it felt so important, and it was, but also none of it feels very real or substantial now. Bill has died. I keep in touch with his former girlfriend on Facebook. She’s wonderful.

But as my daughter’s “most important night of high school” approaches (her words, certainly not mine!), I can’t help but think that all the strategizing and planning, the agonizing choices about friends and boyfriend and what they’ll wear. Well… it’s sweet, and I know it feels absolutely life or death to them. Yet it also seems like a dandelion seed in the wind. Gorgeous and complicated, but light as air.