Friday night's homecoming basketball games have just been canceled due to a winter storm warning calling for snow, sleet and ice. Colette yells from her room, "The games are canceled. My life has no meaning!" So far, plans for the homecoming dance on Saturday still stand. If they fall, teen disappointment could be catastrophic.
I have felt a quiet tension about the homecoming dance building throughout January. A few weeks ago, sixth-grade Adele turned to Colette to ask in the car, "So, do you know who you're going to homecoming with?"
"No."
"Are you going to ask someone?" she followed up in a bright tone.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't feel like talking!" Colette snapped.
I tried to ease the situation by explaining to Adele why this year might feel different to her sister: "I think in ninth grade," I said, "it's fun to go with your friends. Then in tenth grade, it's exciting to have a date. Maybe eleventh grade is different. Maybe they're stressed out, or--"
"I'm jaded," Colette cut me off, glum and firm.
A week later she mentioned friendship tensions at school, and I suggested that maybe they were related to homecoming.
"You're obsessed with homecoming," she accused me over her burrito.
"No. I'm just saying that it might be causing tension. Think about if you were a guy--you'd either have to get up the guts this week to ask someone, or you'd know you were letting the opportunity pass you by. And for girls, you either have to wait for someone to ask you--someone you might not even like--or you have to decide to ask someone yourself. It's stressful."
She got quiet. "Yeah, maybe," she said.
My own formal dances in high school caused tremendous feelings of dread, embarrassment and loneliness. At an all-girls school, I barely knew any boys. I lay on the twin bed in my room, dreaming of being loved and accepted by some boyfriend, but whom? When dances approached, I could think of no one to ask. I'd cry until my parents suggested I ask a friend of my little brother, three years my junior, and then I'd cry harder from the insult of their suggestion. It took all my bravery to invite any boy at all, let alone a boy I liked. At seventeen, the development of my self was in progress. Looking back, I didn't actually need a full-fledged boyfriend or a serious relationship at that time. Yet I pined, wondering, who would love me? It was too early to know.
Last week, Colette decided to ask a date to the homecoming dance. Now, everything is in place: the dress, the date, the dinner plans with friends from her team. She's excited and happy--not jaded after all. The world hasn't even opened up to her yet. Her small high school here at home is not the place where she's likely to meet an Othello.
But it is where she's bonded and grown with the girls on her team. Homecoming, I remind myself, is a celebration on a cold January night of the basketball team and their season. It's a chance for the girls to dress up together, go out to dinner and meet up at school to link arms and take pictures. The whole school is invited to the celebration. With or without dates, they have no need for dread or loneliness. They have each other, and it's quite enough to be young and strong, laughing raucously and dancing with classmates and teammates. At this point, the roads just need to remain clear enough to get there.
