Crystal Kirgiss - More Than Skin Deep. A Guide to Self and Soul

More Than
skin
deep

A Guide to
Self and Soul

Crystal Kirgiss

J UNIOR HIGH WASNT MY FAVORITE TIME OF LIFE. B ECAUSE OF BIZARRE district boundary lines, Id gone to an elementary school on the west side of town but then got assigned to the junior high on the east side of town. All of my elementary school friends went to the west side junior high. The new junior high. The awesome junior high. The junior high with a full-size gym and a legit cafeteria. The junior high with carpeted hallways, bright windows, and huge classrooms. But not me.

Instead of walking out of my neighborhood and turning right, like Id done for the past however-many years of my life, I now turned left east and walked into the great unknown. For some people, this might not have been an issue. For someone like me, who didnt have an overabundance of friends and who wasnt overly outgoing, it was a tragic moment of epic proportions. I headed east that first day with faint hopes of building a new life for myself, convinced that things couldnt get any worse than they already were.

Wrong.

Kids from three different elementary schools attended my junior high, so in theory the students knew only one-third of their new classmates and were strangers to the other two-thirds. In that sense, my situation as the new kid wasnt totally hopeless. But instead of getting placed in a typical homeroom where students knew only one-third of their new classmates and were strangers to the other two-thirds (decent odds for the new girl), I got placed in a section with twenty-or-so students whod all been each others classmates for the last two years and each others schoolmates for the four years before that (they were in some experimental program for Talented and Gifted Students) and were all on a first-name basis with everyone. They had inside jokes. They had nicknames for each other nice nicknames. Nicknames of endearment. They knew each others parents and siblings. They were or at least it seemed to me a family. And I was the stranger. The new girl. The outsider.

Fantastic. Marvelous. Lucky me.

Id been in a similar situation in second grade when my family had moved to the other side of the suburbs halfway through the school year. Id gotten a new home, new neighbors, new school, new teacher, new classmates, new everything, and it was kind of scary for about ten minutes. Id walked into my new second-grade classroom where everyone already knew everyone else, and everyone already had a desk, and everyone already had friends, and everyone already knew the rules and the routines, and everyone already had art projects hanging on the wall and held my breath in panic for about three minutes, at which point a girl named Cynthia came up to me and said, Wanna see what Im learning how to make? and my world was okay again. It was as easy as that. But things sometimes arent as easy in junior high as in second grade.

For me, starting at a new school wasnt as easy the second time around, because I didnt have quite as much self-confidence and I had a lot more self-consciousness when I walked into my new junior high as when Id walked into my new elementary school almost five years earlier. For starters, I was aware of Boys (with a capital B). Up to that point, theyd just been boys lowercase b neither greater than nor less than girls. But now, well, they were still neither greater than nor less than girls, but they certainly were very different than us. I wasnt necessarily interested in them as Boys, if you know what I mean but there were plenty of girls who were interested in them as Boys, and that was a whole new world of drama and romance and gossip that I wasnt ready for. Still, my intense awareness of them made me act differently. Sometimes silly, sometimes stupid, sometimes awkward, sometimes aloof.

On top of that, I was sure that every person passing me in the hall was thinking, New girl. Bad skin. Look out. A year earlier, Id had two skin-related episodes that were more than mildly distressing. First, Id gotten pimples. Zits. Acne. Whatever. I didnt care what they were called, I only cared that I had them and my friends didnt. How unfair could life be? Pretty unfair, it turns out, because just a few months after getting pimples, I got chicken pox. For two long weeks, I watched pox multiply among all the other imperfections on my face, prohibited by the doctor from scrubbing for fear of making everything worse, which was small comfort because when the chicken pox were gone, the scars and the pimples were still there. When I finally went back to school, one girl came up to me in the lunch line and said, Gee, its kind of hard to tell that you dont have chicken pox anymore because your face looks so awful anyway.

How do you reply to that? I just turned away and kept filling my lunch tray.

On that first day of seventh grade, I still had bad skin. (Why do you suppose we call it bad, as though it has its own will and is guilty of misbehaving or being disobedient? Its not as though my skin had any choice in the matter.) And I still thought it was unfair because so many other people had good skin. Even perfect skin. Why was I one of the unlucky ones? Oh well. At least I had my health. (Thats what grandmas and great-aunts say to make us feel better, but its not at all helpful or comforting.)

Truthfully my complexion issues didnt totally drag me down. I actually felt pretty good about myself in some ways. I was a good student. I could play piano well. I liked my family. And I was determined to make some new friends in my new school friends who I could hang out with for the next few years, friends who would like me for who I was.

Then came Second Hour social studies. We had to read a short chapter about I-dont-remember-what, and then the teacher started asking us questions about what wed read. I prayed she would skip me. After all, I was the new girl. I didnt know anyone. I was from the west side of town. I had bad skin. Surely she would sense my discomfort and unease and move on to the next student.

Wrong.

She ignored all my mental commands to Skip me! Ignore me! Dont notice me! and asked me what I thought about question number three. I withered. I froze. I panicked. I wept (inwardly, of course). And then I thought, This is my opportunity to show that Im confident. That Im intelligent. That Im not afraid of a challenge. That I can be a strong person who would be a good no, a great friend to anyone. That Im not a cowardly, bumbling, introverted nobody. That I am somebody. So I cleared my throat and delivered what I thought was an amazing and stellar answer.

As soon as I finished, a boy near the back of the room snickered and said sarcastically, That is the stupidest thing Ive ever heard.

Crisis. What should I do? What should I say? I didnt know anyone, so I wasnt sure if he was the class clown I should ignore (with a condescending hmmmmph) or the class leader I should try to impress (with my own sarcastic comment). I didnt know if I should respond directly, or pretend I hadnt heard. I didnt know whether to shrug it off, or rise to the challenge. I was totally frozen.

But I knew my answer hadnt been stupid. I knew I wasnt stupid. And I knew I deserved better than being ridiculed and mocked on my first day in a new school.

So from the front of the room, with everyone looking to see what Id do, I stared that boy straight in the eye, took a deep breath, and said, Youre wrong. My answer was good. Really good.