1st Assignment

               I achieved enlightenment at a church dance. Nothing involving fathers, sons, and holy ghosts, mind you. I’m not exactly a woman of faith and I really had no business being there. I could have counted the times I’d been in a church on one hand. The event was informally known as ‘Mormon Prom’, a name which brought to mind endless hours of warm punch and hands-off dancing. I was invited to go with my dear sweet Mormon friend. She made a bad choice; I must have been the only girl who showed up with uncovered arms.

               I was a mess. And not just within these circumstances. Picture a sad teenager, steadily cutting all ties with the material world. I had been glaring at the floor since fifth grade and could very charitably be described as ‘brooding and artistic’. You know this kid. Everybody knows this kid. My dress didn’t fit and my makeup was running before we even arrived. Tragic.

               Mormon Prom, on the other hand, was picture perfect. The ceiling was crowded with balloons and the floor was crowded with girls in big cupcake dresses. We said a prayer and did a line dance. There was a DJ with a carefully selected catalogue of appropriate pop songs. Church officials watched with eagle eyes from the sidelines. Within ten minutes the temperature was above ninety degrees and the whole venue was starting to smell like Mormon sweat. My salvation arrived just as I was getting ready to call it a loss and crawl back to my cave for the night.

               This guy had been making the rounds all night, formally introducing himself to everybody who looked lonely. He was six feet tall and weighed maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. He had a blue shirt and a screaming red tie and an out of control halo of curly mousy hair. Faced with the polar opposite of myself, I broke down and did something I had hoped I’d never have to do. I had a conversation.

               The stairwell at the back entrance of the hall was breezy and almost pleasant. He brought me a drink. His name was Sonny. He was like me: a gatecrasher, a non-Mormon at Mormon prom, here with a friend. We had things in common. We got along. We danced and kissed and had fun. For a human disaster like myself, this was completely terrifying. This dork was threatening to upset my whole take on life. The lesson here is obvious: I stepped out of my antisocial comfort zone and was rewarded. I made an effort to socialize with a friendly stranger and wound up in a relationship that lasted for a year.

               To say that Mormon Prom somehow fixed my life is, of course, ridiculous. My grades never recovered, and I’m still a bit of a weirdo. But I think that I did learn something that many people like me never do. People can seem completely alien and terrifying to a kid with few social graces, but we’re really all the same. And if you never force yourself past the boundaries you’ve made, you never grow or learn.