by Monica Janzen
One day I heard a friend talking about how lame she felt in junior high and high school. She called that period of her life the “troll years” because she felt so ugly, isolated, uncoordinated, and alone. The trolls are those frightening creatures under the bridge in the “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” I understood instantly what my friend was talking about.
These were the years when I wanted to look cool, but I had braces and bad hair. I wanted to be athletic but was totally uncoordinated. I wanted to be a babe, but I tried too hard.
It all started in junior high. My mom was getting a perm and I wanted one, too. I knew that my blonde hair would look full, bouncy, shiny and vibrant if I had a perm. We went to some salon running a perm special. That was our first mistake. Our second mistake was assuming our hairdresser had a clue.
We watched passively as she picked out the smallest rollers and tightly bound up our hair. My mom and I always looked kind of alike. After our perms, we were twins — both with blonde afros.
When my hair finally grew out, I felt better about myself even though my teeth were crooked and I had an overbite. But then I hit a growth spurt. I grew six inches in one summer. I went from 5’2’’ to 5’8’’ overnight. I was extremely thin and incredibly uncoordinated. My brothers made up an action song about me. They sang and imitated the “lanky gazelle” whenever they saw me coming.
When I started high school, I was 5’8” and weighed 90 pounds. People came up to me in gym class and grabbed my arm.
“I can break your arm,” they’d say. “You are so skinny. Are you anorexic?”
I’d pull my long, gangly limb back toward my emaciated body. “Leave me alone. You should see how much I can eat.” It was the truth. I was always hungry. If I missed one meal, I’d pass out from starvation. I ate breakfast, morning snack, a huge lunch, a snack when I got home, a gigantic dinner, and cereal before I went to bed. I could not gain any weight.
My weight was not my only problem. Red spots burst forth from every pore on my face. I scrubbed, washed, and tried every acne treatment. I couldn’t do anything to improve my looks. Fortunately, I had some great friends who were willing to cope with being trolls together.
I remember sitting with my friend Shelby at a basketball game and realizing she had a gigantic forehead. The way she wore her hair accented its vast magnitude. I suggested she cut some bangs to make her forehead look smaller. She told me that I had a ski-jump nose. She said that when I pulled my hair back, I could poke someone’s eye out with my nose. We both laughed. I knew Shelby wasn’t serious and only wanted me to look better. We could poke fun at each other without being cruel.
At the beginning of my sophomore year, I organized a welcome picnic for the new students. I stopped on the crowded quad for a moment as I busily ran around. I was staring off in the distance, thinking, when this very cool, star football player looked up and saw me staring in his direction.
“What are you looking at?” he sneered loudly in front of everyone. “This is nothing you can have,” he laughed.
His words reminded me instantly that I was still a troll. I felt so embarrassed I wanted to disappear. I felt the whole school staring at me. I said nothing and walked away.
After my shame wore away, I realized this guy was a total loser. Who would ever have the nerve to say something so mean except some total egomaniac? I may have been a troll, but one outgrows this stage like the ugly duckling. On the other hand, his attitude might be for life.