Prom Part One

You read books and watch movies as a kid and high school seems like either a fairly nice dream or a nightmare come true, but in reality it’s just another day. A day with less freedom and in some cases less responsibility than what you experience in the adult world, sure, but it’s another day. Dances usually suck, but unless your high school experience was awful, it’s nothing to really complain about either. And then there’s prom. Up until the other day, I thought prom would be kinda… boring. That is, until my boyfriend asked me in the most perfect way.

So let me give you a little backstory. Since I was seven, I’ve been a reader and an avid fan of the literary world. Since my boyfriend, Kyle, was in middle school, he’s been a huge reader too, similar to how I am. We dated a few years ago for six months, and split up because to me it just felt like a friendship again. Fast forward to today, and we’ve been dating for a little over a year, and up until yesterday we’ve never been to the library together. And that’s HUGE, considering our amazing public library is like a safe haven for me as Books-A-Million is one for him.

It was all SO elaborately planned!! As my mom is more of a magazine person than a book gal, I was a little curious as to why on earth she wanted to go to the library on Friday, but I didn’t question it. As I was under the notion he was working that night and his aunt is a big reader too, it didn’t surprise me at all when I ran into aunt and his cousins there. While I was looking for a few specific Orson Scott Card and C.C. Hunter books, (a couple of my favorite authors for a long time!) I knew something was up when I saw his sister and she gave me a note, which was the first part of a poem with the location of a book. And so our search began.

It was like smaller scale geo-cache hunting, and I loved it. Nestled between a couple of books was the second note. In a nutshell, it was myself, his sister and his cousins running from floor to floor in the library looking for notes of the poem and searching for book locations. And for the longest time the second to last note confused the hell out of me, as the last line was “seek the place where you can get something that grows like our love”. My first thought was the garden and park on library grounds, until his aunt gently reminded me of the old library catalog.

Years ago when they digitized the library’s system, rather than throw away the old card catalog case the librarians filled the catalog with seed packets. They rotate the flowers, herbs, fruits and veggie packets based on the season, and you’re allowed to get five packets per month for free. Also, although I’ve never truly tried my hand at herbs and the like, Kyle has just wedged his foot in the door of gardening and has started to grow herbs. Me on the other hand? I’m also really interested in growing things, but the closest I’ve come is propagating cacti and succulents for the past couple of years.

So, it was absolutely perfect when I found him by the catalog case, beautiful purple flowers in hand, in the library with the last note sticking out of his jacket.

I know how much I’ve been saying it in this post, but seriously. IT WAS PERFECT. The books, the plants, and although it’s not the favorite color either of us have, the purple flowers for valentine’s day, our one year anniversary, when he asked me to prom, and the notes all written in purple ink. By happy chance, even our clothes were color coordinated in red and pink. Afterwards our families had dinner at the Olive Garden, which was teeming with people, but the food was delicious and as a vegetarian it’s so nice being able to go out to eat to a place which actually has meat free options. Literally a perfect night.

Stick around for part Two, which will occur after prom!! xoxo