I believe there are occurrences in your adolescence that shape the steps you take as an adult. Literally.

For me, it was the bunions that occurred at the age of 14. Oh, and also the bunionettes. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, a bunion is a bony bump that forms on the joint at the base of your big toe. Some of the bones in the front part of your foot move out of place, which causes your big toe to get pulled toward the smaller toes and forces the joint to stick out. 

A bunionette is the same thing, but occurs on the littlest piggy that went to the market.

Imagine this: You’re a 9-year-old girl with a size 9 shoe. You’re shorter than most of your friends, but your feet could double as skis. 

That was me in fourth grade. I thought I was super cool because nobody else had the same size shoe as the teacher. And, I had transition lenses.

Fast forward to freshman year in high school, I’m 14 with a size 10 shoe and they were starting to get tight. On the sides. My feet were literally growing horizontally.

I hadn’t reached my final form yet (5’10”), but I had finally grown to a height that was taller than the length of my feet, and now they were trying to compete with my waist line.

My mom took me to a podiatrist, who then diagnosed me as a teenage girl with bunions. Luckily, the left foot’s bunion and bunionette were ripe enough to chop off. The right foot was still cooking.

I underwent surgery and told classmates I had broken my foot in a “bear-related accident” for the drama and mystery of it all. And, not too long after, I discovered the surgery had been botched. 

My mom and I should not have been as surprised as we were when my big toe started to social-distance itself from the rest of my foot, as the podiatrist’s office was in a strip mall with Domino’s Pizza as its neighbor.

Because I wasn’t in any sports and could not have been injured in an athletic way, and people knew I would never waste my energy running away from a bear, my secret leaked.

That year, I learned that no one cares about one weird thing about you, if there are multiple weird things about you. So, I adopted humor and unique hobbies.

The summer before sophomore year of high school, my grandpa gifted me a banjo he won at an auction. I had played guitar since I was 7 and taught myself how to play bass guitar in seventh grade. So obviously, the next step in life for me was the old banjo.

I met a woman named Mary Temple, who taught me everything I needed to know when it came to the twangy five-string.

At the time, I was also the bassist in a rock band that had perfected Pixies and Marilyn Manson covers. We called ourselves the Palm Tree in the Corner as our practice room at my house had a fake palm tree in the corner. 

What can I say? We were a group of creatives.

Right as I was finding my niche in adolescence, my stupid botched left foot was starting to cry out to me again. I imagine it was to the tune of “Creep” by Radiohead.

This time, my mom took me to an orthopedic surgeon in an actual doctor’s office with no pizza parlor in sight. 

I underwent my second surgery, and wheeled myself out of there on my brand-new snazzy knee scooter.

Now, this is where I became very cool, or as my sisters would say, “unique” and “a little weird.”

A very popular local bluegrass band, 6-Mile Road, was going to perform at my high school in the coming weeks. 

Mr. Howard, my super-cool history teacher and Recording, Audio, and Visual Engineering Club leader, had set it all up, with the Palm Tree in the Corner and a few other student rock bands as the openers.

Some members of 6-Mile Road were good friends with my banjo teacher and would come over and jam when I had lessons. It was at one of these lessons when they asked me to come onstage with them and local banjo extraordinaire Jamie Lynn to perform “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show. 

When I say I played the banjo, I mean I knew what each string was and maybe a chord or two. These guys were professionals in the art of twang. But, this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

There I was on concert night: faded Nirvana T-shirt under a flannel, hair dyed silver, Jamaican flag colors decorating my bass strap tossed around my shoulder with the red bass low on my back, my banjo strapped around my shoulders in the front, and my knee perched on its very own throne on wheels, to eliminate pressure on my booted-up hopefully un-botched foot.

Anyway, the concert was awesome, you should’ve been there.

My friends from the other band performed a sick rendition of “Man in the Box” by Alice in Chains that my grandpa still talks about today. My band performed our take on “Sweet Dreams” by Marilyn Manson, with our lead singer/guitarist screaming so loud at the end it scared my grandma.

After the metal and grunge of it all, it was time for folk and bluegrass.

I was standing (on one foot) next to the stage, waiting for my cue to come on. When the nod came, I kickstarted my scooter with my right foot, wheeled myself next to the other banjoists, and claw-hammered away.

In reality, I played extremely quietly and used my hair to cover my face as I had awful stage fright and had only played the banjo for a few months. 

But boy, was I a star out there! I took my bow and rolled myself backwards off the stage to a loud smattering of applause (my grandpa claps very loud).

It was then that I knew I could never thrive in normalcy. I had a few screws loose. Literally. I had to have a fourth foot surgery in 2022 because of loose screws in my foot.

Like I said earlier, there are moments in life that define who you’ll be when you grow up. For me, it was having a botched bunion surgery and the banjo.

I’m now 24, have had four foot surgeries, and subject my roommate to my banjolele (banjo-ukulele, aka the sickest instrument of all time) skills.

Oh, and I also write for a living. Can you imagine looking at an Excel spreadsheet all day? Couldn’t be me, I have bunions.

Sidnee Short is the Item‘s Lynn reporter.