I only had one and a half semesters of high school of high school before I got sick, and those months are fuzzy (my memory gets bad as I near the time of my illness, so I will talk about junior high).

Ah, school dances. They defined your social standing. Although at 12 and 13 I had plenty of friends, some who were boys, I had no “boyfriend.” At the time, it was so disappointing. There was one boy that his friends came up to me and told me that he liked me. Although I secretly liked him, it was something that not even my best friend knew. I was too embarrassed. He was a poor student, overweight, and a face full of pimples. I had my pride.

Dances at Corona Fundamental Intermediate School dances were very casual. No fancy dresses, although there was primping and you had to change out of what you had worn at school. Not doing so was just uncouth.

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When you got there, the gym/where we ate lunch when it rained was decked out with streamers and balloons that, since I was on the student council, I had help put up.

Junior high dances are extremely awkward. Usually girls on one side of the room, boys on the other. This dance lived up to the stereotype. Just the couples danced. The rest of us sat on the bench catching up on gossip.

The occasion was far from the glamorous afternoon we’d all envisioned.  No amount of primping—all that time crammed in front of the girls’ bathroom with hairbrushes and Bonnie Bell lip gloss and gasp, mascara wands in some hands—takes the awkward out of a school dance.