When I was 14 I got my period. I was so retarded my mother almost took me to the doctor about it when finally she got to slap my face (gently and with love, in the tradition of her mother, so I’d retain my rosy complexion). I was already in ninth grade because I’d skipped a year of elementary school, and I’d been faking a menstrual cycle for over a year (we had to “count off” for attendance in junior high PE, and a girl who was undergoing that time of month said “sponge” after her number, indicating she wouldn’t be showering that day, so I’d been saying “sponge” for three days every four weeks even though it wasn’t true).

My adolescence wasn’t conventional in other ways either. I was a reader so I knew girls were supposed to be coltish and lovely at my time of life: long legs, blooming bodies, thick blonde tresses. The first features to grow on me were my nose and my feet (I gave up bowling when I was in seventh grade, just under five feet tall and sporting a 9 on the back of those rented shoes). My dark brown hair went from wavy to frizzy as the hormones kicked in, and my breasts got tender but they didn’t enlarge. Add to all that thick eyeglasses and a loud personality and I think you get the picture.

In time things evened out. I never got blonde and my feet kept growing (size 11), but I acquired contact lenses and a female shape and I grew into my facial features and my personality (still a work in progress). It got to where I looked at earlier pictures of me, taken at times when my self-esteem was at its lowest ebb, and I saw that, really, that girl wasn’t so bad at all. I’m 60 now, and every young person looks good to me. I wish they’d all just settle down and spend a little more time enjoying themselves.

I’m sure everyone has related to the fable at some time or other. For me it’s a favorite and a truth.

Awkward little bird who doesn’t fit,
gawky walker, alien and rude,
following a coterie unlit
by loving or familiar attitude,
infancy who won’t accept despair,
you can’t refuse your life. You’re nothing wrong
to want to understand, and you will dare
continue till you find where you belong.
From your tenacity you will recoup
peace and patience, strong and ever kind.
You will live long enough to meet your group,
and as you face your pain, you’ll be refined.

Embarrassment may be the acid test
that separates the learners from the rest.