Glitter and gold

Prom party has come and gone.  Girls in all their glittering finery dressed up with matching boyfriends and stood for the millions of photos from parents, grandparents and each other.  Hair and makeup perfectly done, shoes matched purses and everyone prayed the rain would stay away while the photo session was in full swing (it did).  I followed the group of girls around with my camera and took millions (well, hundreds for sure) of pictures that are now being uploaded to facebook to be shared amongst each other.  One of the benefits of the extra zoom that I bought for my camera are the tons of ‘non-posed’ pictures I was able to get.  Some of them are really great.

It seems to have been a successful night.  Everyone had fun from what I’ve heard and what I can tell.  The park was full of wandering people who posed with this group and then that.  Sometimes down by the water and other times on the little kid’s play equipment.  We were there taking pictures for almost two hours.  Then off to dinner and the big after-party.

I was standing around with my camera, you know, as parental types do when they’re kind of in the way but don’t really know where else to go and I heard a bunch of girls whispering in shocked tones – “she’s here!”.  Step-daughter came to the photo shoot.

Step-daughter dropped out of her grade 12 year and eventually was banned from the school grounds due to issues she was having with some of the kids (buddy included).  She wasn’t allowed to go to the dinner, mostly because she never followed through with calling the principal and setting it up herself.  The saddest part of all – she was there by herself.  Her older sister came with her to take a few pictures but it was blatantly obvious that she didn’t have any parental support at all.  I’m not sure either of her parents even knew she was there or that grad was even happening that day.  She got ready at her sister’s apartment in town and she was returning there afterwards.  I get that she wasn’t graduating and that it’s because she dropped out (thanks bio-mom for signing her out the first chance you had) and that she has alienated a lot of her former friends, but her wish to be included and be part of things was so evident as she stood there by herself.  The lack of support from family was also evident since every other kid there had someone(s) there to ooh and ahh over them and make them feel special.

Raising kid lesson # 4 – be involved and be invested.

My heart went out to step-daughter.  She couldn’t have looked more out of place or alone if she tried.  She didn’t even bother trying to find a date, she just went by herself.  It really speaks to what she has going for her in her life right now and how much she knows it’s missing.  Even buddy, who literally doesn’t have parents and was dumped by her boyfriend right before prom had me there with all the other parental types and a date on her arm that thinks she’s the most beautiful girl and he’s the luckiest guy.  Step-daughter who has parents and step-parents and gets whatever she wants whenever she wants it without effort or work of any kind; but emotionally – has nothing.

I did hang with step-daughter for a bit and took some photos for her.  It wasn’t really the same though.  The tension is back between us once again and things are just not well.  It’s all such a shame because it really didn’t need to be this way.