Almost two decades ago when I was in my early-50s I started blogging. First on LiveJournal, then here. The goal of those blogs was to explore my femininity and share female experiences with friends. I felt a profoundly deep urge to do this and remedy a painful absence of such experiences in my earlier life.
The effort was a success. I discovered many important things and made many new friends. I'm proud of the first ten years of my blog. Even though those posts are still accessible today, nobody ever reads them except me.
One of my ideas back then was to create new experiences to replace ones I and others never had. Talking to people I asked about teenage proms and frequently heard regret -- sadness that people didn't have a magical prom experience. Since I too hadn't had a prom experience, I suggested re-creating proms in adulthood to make up for lost ones of youth. The idea seemed a healthy, positive way of dealing with regret.
The result was "The Prom Project", a major post of Herculean effort. In 2011 I bought two prom dresses, created two pretty outfits and mounted a massive photoshoot in a friend's backyard. Unlike all my other posts where I photographed myself while simultaneously modeling, this post was photographed by a friend, enabling us to create nicer pictures.
The post still stands (here) but, for unknown reason, the Internet removed images in many posts for about a year. Fortunately I have offline copies of the prom photos which I want to now re-post. Here are the pictures from 15 years ago. Remember that I was 53 back then, younger than I am today but decades older than a typical prom-goer. I did the best I could to re-create a prom experience and these photos are the manifestation of that.
That was an excellent idea to do the prom project. And the fact that you have been able to save those images is amazing. I began blogging on Typepad, during the mid 2000's, but unfortunately Typepad decided to cease operations at the end of 2024, and I lost all those images and blog posts.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about that. It's hard to manage digital files. In the old days we used shoeboxes to store photos. :)
DeleteOh my gosh, I remember those photos! But surely you've made a mistake, as we couldn't possibly have both aged 15 years since then... haha
ReplyDeleteI loved your prom project so much!! I, like many, did not go to prom. I graduated a year early and didn't go my junior year. You have always brought people together, Ally, and your journey has been such a wonderful one. I'm sad the photos are lost to time, but the memories are still with us. I remember your sisterhood of the traveling mermaid tail too. I miss the old days a blogging. It's no longer the same, but I also made a lot of wonderful friends through it, including you.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe it's been SO LONG! I have never had friends for this long. It's very special to look back on it all this morning.