The Kid Needed a Prom Dress
Chloe (daughter) and I set aside time today to go prom dress shopping. Her dad (my ex) has douche tendencies when it comes to money and pulled a typical shaming message about financial responsibility right before we were set to leave to buy a dress for prom. She’s a 4.0 student athlete whose AP research project is about financial literacy. Total dick dad move.
As we were getting ready to leave, I pulled the Seeker’s Lenormand. I told her I work with the kinds of energies that created the world, the Vastness of the Ocean, the Expansiveness of Air, the Connection to all Things and wondered what she thought about bringing the search for the dress to them and getting an assist. She was down with it.
We took some time to clarify what she was looking for: wanted to feel sexy but not vulnerable; surprisingly well-priced; easy and fun to find; overall great experience; absolutely find it today in the couple of hours we had alloted. We made the appeal. Then I told her to pick the very first card her eye was drawn to and fanned out the deck.
I asked her what came to mind with the card: what did she notice?
She noticed that the bottom half was one piece and the top half was energetic and less structured. She’s a Gemini and she made the connection with the bird’s two heads. Bird in flight, able to move freely (important for a dance). She said she was really drawn to the head.
Then we went shopping.
She picked a couple dresses in a couple sizes, liked them all but wasn’t in love. She pointed to one she’d brought in that she hadn’t been able to figure out – turns out the top was confusing to her and she needed some help figuring out where all the straps went. Plus it felt like it had been a size too small.
The lovely sales lady offered to get her a size up and I helped her figure out where all the body parts went. Her whole face lit up when she saw herself!
So the bottom was one piece, fitted but designed to be able to provide free movement. The top was a strappy affair with about four different strings for hanging and keeping it all together. Totally covers the “chesticles” with a high front, but is strappy in the back where it’s fun and less revealing. She loved the way she looked, the sales lady was awesome, the experience was fantastic, it was the fourth dress she tried on, and it was just over 50% of her budget. We were out in just over an hour.
When we got to the car she told me she’d just picked the dress because she thought it looked fun but that she didn’t think it would be the one she got.
Then in the parking lot, we started comparing the dress to The Bird, and she was absolutely blown away! “The current’s always there, Babe. You just have to plug in.”
On the way home we talked about how ‘sure you can work work work hard for what you want, but it sure is fun to tap into the magic behind all the things and feel like a collaborator in creating what you want.’ (Object lesson for Mom too)
We looked at The Bird card again once we got home. I pointed at the birds’ heads, and she just laughed. A velvet burgundy, just like her dress.
What a fucking glorious day! Thanks, Others, for taking care of my girl!