Homecoming is a big deal in tiny high schools like the one I attended. All of the alumni round up in the gym to watch the varsity basketball team play a neighboring rival. The girls get their hair and nails done and put on more makeup than they usually wear. They spend weeks searching for the perfect dress for the dance.
And don't forget the homecoming proposals with big stuffed bears and signs that say, "Will you bear 'hoco' with me?"
Every teenage movie has the popular girl who campaigns for homecoming queen. She wants it so bad, and her life has supposedly led up to this moment. Remember the Disney Channel Original Movie "Princess Protection Program"? I loved this movie so much as a little girl that I could probably quote it if I watched it today.
In the movie, one of the popular mean girls is constantly campaigning to win homecoming queen. Meanwhile, the main character and new girl, Rosie (Demi Lovato), is stealing the hearts of her fellow high schoolers simply by being a really awesome person. Spoiler alert: In the end, Rosie is crowned homecoming queen and every girl realizes that she is a real-life princess. (How perfect is that?)
Real life spoiler alert: This isn't what usually happens. Not every girl who deserves to be crowned a queen will be one.
I was never homecoming queen. To be honest, most of us weren't. It doesn't bother me. We don't need it. It does not measure talent, intelligence, friendliness, etc. It does not measure the worth of the relationships you have made with the people you go to school with.
Don't get me wrong, I guarantee that every senior girl who won homecoming queen possessed one or all of these traits. But every girl possesses these traits in some capacity.
I know so many talented girls who never won homecoming queen — not because they didn't deserve it, but because they were never keen on being the center of attention, so maybe they didn't know as many people. Or they weren't the person everyone immediately thought of when they saw the ballot. I know women who are queens of being nice to people, queens of making people laugh, queens of having a good time wherever they go.
It doesn't matter that you were never homecoming queen.
You are still a queen.
