Hug or not to hug, kiss or not to kiss

Chapter VI

Hug or not to hug, kiss or not to kiss?

The tux that I rented was an Oscar de le Renta, and I rented it from President Tuxedo at the Waterford Summit Place Mall, when the mall was still there.  I was fitted for my tux two weeks or so before I picked it up.

There's one thing I regret about the whole prom thing with Dawn, I wish we could have done more together, like pick out my tux together, gone shopping together.  I know it sounds corny, and I know it's something people probably don't do nowadays unless they're a couple, but I think it would have been fun.  Plus, I wish my parents would have met Dawn.  Wait, did I just type that? HA!  Yes, it's true.  I wish they could have met her, that's how nice of a person she was.

With everything I've been through in life, health wise, it would have meant something so special to spend more time with her prior to prom, and I think the butterflies wouldn't have been as bad. Did she have any?  I have no clue, probably not.

It was the day before prom, Friday, May 8th 1998 and I remember getting my car washed and waxing it by hand from top to bottom, even doing the tires.  I wanted to impress Dawn, and I wanted this day/night to be memorable, something she could look back on and smile.  Flip forward to today, 15 years later, and I can pretty much say she probably doesn't remember the date, or me (chuckles).  She doesn't have any pictures of the occasion. I'll get to that later.

I remember driving up to the mall to pick up my tux.  I had a lot on my mind.  How was I going to say goodbye to Dawn at the end of the night?  As you can tell by now, I do worry about stuff like that, even when my CF Camp friend Kama Mastromonaco came over and visited with me in May 2007, I was a nervous wreck the day before.  What were we going to do?  What did she like to eat?  I guess I wanted her to feel comfortable, the same why I wanted Dawn to feel.

Anyway, as I was heading back home from picking up my tux, I continued to wonder.  Was I just going to hug her at the end of the night?  Was I going to hug her and give her a kiss on the cheek? I ruled out everything else, since we were just friends.  Prom wasn't just about the dance, but making all the right decisions to secure her friendship and not ruin it in any way.

Back in those days I had a lot of guts and took chances in life.  It was a different world back then and people were just different.  If something went wrong on a date, or you did something wrong, that other person didn't have social media to spill their gossip about that other person.  There wasn't as much confusion in life.

By the time I had got home, I knew I was just going to play it safe and just hug Dawn.

CONTINUE. . . 

'Wonderful Tonight'
By Eric Clapton
Year: 1977
One of my top 10 favorite slow songs