I grew up in the ‘80s. Big, sprayed, permed hair and tight-rolled, high-waisted acid washed jeans. Fluorescent colors and loud prints. New Kids on the Block and Madonna dominated the music scene and everyone was reading Sweet Valley Twins and God, Are You There? It’s Me Margaret. Cabbage Patch dolls and Barbie dolls were as unavoidable as Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers.

Most people have an awkward story about their adolescence. I firmly believe that anyone who doesn’t has some kind of psychological issue. I felt especially “other” during this decade and was incredibly conscious of it, mainly because my peers were incredibly conscious of it.

I have always had thick, wavy hair that will style whatever way you like, but is incredibly unruly if left to it’s own devices. It would have performed well with the teased and hair-sprayed styles of the ‘80s, but I was not interested. I didn’t like anything in my hair. When I was very young, I wouldn’t let my mom pull it back and, since I was an incredibly active kid, my mom would have to comb out endless tangles, which neither of us enjoyed. She finally told me if I didn’t start letting her pull it back, we were going to cut it off. I told her to cut it off, and I happily had short hair for the next several years. I refused to spray it, put fluorescent barrettes in it, or god forbid a side pony with a scrunchy that matched anything else I was wearing.

Prepping for my first horse show. A rare moment in jeans with a tucked in shirt.

My mother will give you horror stories of trying to get me dressed as a toddler. I couldn’t stand things touching my waist or anything the least bit confining. She had to make me overalls for all seasons. I had a screaming tantrum when she tried to get me to wear a pair of jeans once. So, when I was older, I was already perfectly happy in my uniform of loose knit pants with an elastic waistband and big t-shirts. I HATED prints, so I would generally wear a plain solid colored shirt with plain solid colored bottoms. I would only wear jeans if I had to in order to ride horses.

Instead of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary, I was reading Walter Farley and S.E. Hinton. I remember once being made fun of because I didn’t like New Kids on the Block and being challenged to name one of their songs. I named one, the most popular one, because it was unavoidable and was then told to name another. This was all while I was standing in front of the class in a line to go somewhere and the students who hadn’t been lined up yet were still seated, glaring at me. That’s how I remember it anyway.

When I was in the early grades in school, I would lie and tell my friends that I just didn’t happen to have any dolls. I didn’t know anything about Cabbage Patch or Barbie because I just didn’t have any. I didn’t tell them that I had no interest in dolls and that I would rather play with model horses and Care Bears action figures. I really wanted the Voltron diecast lions and Battle Cat from He-Man, but alas, I never got them. (Those lions are on sale now for hundreds of dollars.)

Regardless, I wanted my friends to like me. I was already weird enough with my goofy hair and strange taste in clothing. I was definitely not a ‘cool’ kid to be friends with. I didn’t know any of those hand-slappy games with matching chants that girls used to sit around in circles and play. I knew lots about dinosaurs and sharks, though. It seemed a small thing, to say that I just didn’t happen to have any dolls. After all, I didn’t. And I wanted my friends to like me.

I see no room for Barbie here. Do you see room for Barbie? I thought not.

Then one birthday party, I believe I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, my friend Courtney bought me a Barbie doll. It was called My First Barbie and I pretended so hard to love it. (Sorry, Courtney!) I believe I even took it out of the box while she was there to prove that I loved it. She was so useless, this Barbie. Her legs were weird. She could do the forward splits, but her legs wouldn’t go out to the side and thus she couldn’t ride on any of my model horses. Not only that, she was way too tall for them. She just didn’t fit into the narrative of that world at all. I didn’t even have any “carriages” (small baskets with yarn tied to them) big enough that she could sit in to be pulled along. Barbie was as ‘other’ in my world as I was in hers.

I stayed ‘weird’ until grunge came along in the 90s and clothes got more comfortable. In high school there were also lots of different clubs and niches that I could fit into. And as I gravitated more toward ‘artsy’ interests like talented art and theatre, yearbook staff, etc., it became acceptable to be a little different.

But that Barbie still taught me a valuable lesson. Never lie about the things you like. And I never have again.

When I was a little girl, I hated dolls.