I don’t care what anyone else says: the late 90’s were fun.
Celestial stuff was everywhere. We’re talking giant suns, weird moons, glow-in-the-dark stars on all of our ceilings. Mystical stuff was neat, Lilith Fair was the hot concert ticket to have, Sarah Mclachlan was on the radio and Loreena McKinnett had just released The Mummer’s Dance. Life for the offbeat was good…even if you got teased for it. Like I did.
My peers at my middle school on the south side of Chicago liked this stuff. They did, because we talked about it, one-on-one. But when we were in a group, this was a forbidden subject. After all, this was the 90’s. You needed to fake liking ‘appropriate’ things, like the right band, the right team, the right type of clothes, the right size for everything. For an era that adored individuality, the 90’s wanted the individuality that could be understood. Not something that challenged and made one uncomfortable.
Mood rings were one of them. They were oddly spiritual, internal, eschewing the idea of the mold because it changed colors based on the person’s inner workings. I loved them.
I showed up with my mood ring the first day of school. I had won it at a carnival that I had gone to in Michigan while on vacation with my family. Annie*, whom I played volleyball and basketball with at my school, oohed and ahhed over it during class.
Precious, thin Annie. Annie who could read social cues, Annie who was organized. Annie who had ‘the right’ personality. Annie who was an only child to a mother who doted on her. Annie who was thin and coordinated. Annie who was smart in the right way. Annie who was everything my neurodivergent self was not.
Worst of all, because people gravitated towards her bubbly, outgoing personality, Annie got away with the most brazen lies, ranging from multiple trips abroad to insane accomplishments that baffled the mind. I knew this was not true–Annie was the only child of a single mother, who lived in a tiny apartment near the railroad tracks on 111th street. There was no way she traveled to Ireland and Japan the year before, no way she had performed on Broadway with a choir.
My NVLD and missing social cues made it impossible for me to catch these signs that I should not call Annie out. I mentioned my discomfort of Annie’s pathological lying to other girls on my team that year, who snapped at me to ‘be nice’ and to never confront Annie about her constant fibbing. Even my own mother told me to stop calling her out, or I would ‘lose friends’. Heaven forbid.
I missed the social signals of ‘this girl is popular and fits into the role that everyone appreciates and likes, do not point out her lies or her bad behavior. She is everything expected of society, and therefore, will be believed before you ever will.’
The next week, sure enough, everyone was admiring Annie’s mood rings that she and her mom had gotten at the mall that Saturday. Annie made up wild stories about meeting colorful, interesting people, who saw how ‘cool and mature’ she was.
Meanwhile, a few days later, I was immediately asked by Annie and her friends (who used to like me), why I was copying her with my own mood ring.
“But I had mine, first!” I blurted out. Marnie rolled her eyes at me. Marnie, who had slumber parties with me throughout 4th and 5th grade, who was on the same volleyball team as me, decided that I was persona non grata at some point right before that point. But, until the ring, I never knew that. My neurodivergent self never got the message, the nonverbal cues that Marnie was sick of my oddball self and my individuality.
“I’m sure you did,” she said to me, sarcastically.
Within the month, mood rings quickly became something Annie made popular. If you got one, it was because you emulated her.
I ended up taking the mood ring off, and putting it on a chain, along with other rings that simply made my huge fingers look even bigger. I wore it around my neck, where I’m sure my moods did not even touch the ring itself.
My NVLD processed those moments as a failure on my part. I missed a social cue, and therefore, failed at an intrinsic part of being a young woman. On being female.
I didn’t recognize that my individuality was not in code with the other girls.
And that, perhaps, if I had known how to behave, how to look, how to act, then perhaps, my rings could have gotten recognized as part of my own individuality, and perhaps, I would have received credit for them. People will believe likeable people before they believe the truth.
But NVLD didn’t allow that.
*=all names have been changed
