How I Fell into a Cave in Kindergarten and Couldn’t Escape for Ten Years

This wasn’t a neglected child mishap — but an act of harm I unknowingly did to myself.

Before the incident, I was a kickball-playing little girl who chased down the ice cream truck with her mom shouting, “Don’t forget my Nutty Buddy!”

I wasn’t afraid to go after what I wanted.

It all changed when my kindergarten class put on a performance of The Billy Goat’s Gruff.

The four teachers of all the kindergarten classes worked together to construct the background diorama out of cardboard boxes and butcher paper with the kids coloring in the scenery of water, the bridge, rocks, and grass. The teachers selected a few kids out of the 100 kindergarteners to play the characters.

My teacher pulled aside myself and Shelly, the cute blond with bouncy curls and dimples.

I couldn’t believe she chose me!

She said there were two parts left: Baby Goat and the Troll.

Oh my gosh! I want to be Baby Goat!, my young heart skipped in giddy anticipation and hope!

Before I could open my mouth to volunteer for Baby Goat, the teacher bent down to our eye level and said, “Shelly, you’ll be Baby Goat, and, Missy, you’ll be THE TROLL!”

She didn’t yell it the way I have it here, but it felt like she did because the sound of TROLL reverberated in my hollowed chest.

I have to play THE TROLL?!

I looked at Shelly jumping up and down with glee, her dimples so cute and her blond ringlets bouncing oh-so-adorably.

I looked down, perhaps because my spine had lost its strength to hold up my head.

My teacher thinks I’m… a troll…

I had very short hair because my stepfather thought I couldn’t keep long hair free from tangles.

I hated my short hair, and I never felt pretty with it.

Hardly any of the other girls had super-short hair.

My teacher had confirmed my most profound shame: I’m not pretty, so I’ll have to be The Troll.

I felt stupid for being so confident up to that moment. Who was I to think I could be Baby Goat, anyway?

I don’t remember the process of learning my lines or rehearsing because I was panicked to perform in front of all four kindergarten classes as THE TROLL.

Come performance day, I was petrified.

There were over 100 kids sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor, and I stood between them and the cardboard diorama as THE TROLL.

I didn’t even have a costume, which probably made things worse since I had to stand entirely as myself.

Here I am, as I am. The Troll of the kindergarten classes at Longwood Elementary.

The play started, and each actor went through their lines: “I want to cross that bridge!” in their cutest Billy Goat voice.

I had to talk with a low, gruff, mean voice, “You can’t cross my bridge!”

The kids giggled.

Oh my gosh… they’re all looking at me…look down…talk quietly…just get through it.

I was so embarrassed.

I began to feel ashamed.

I didn’t want anyone to see me standing there with my short hair — the ugly Troll — so I kept inching closer and closer backward against the diorama. (I almost knocked it off the teacher’s desk!)

Finally, it was done.

I think the kids applauded.

Maybe they said I did a good job.

I have no memory of receiving “thank you” from the teachers or “good job” from my peers.

All I remember was the shame of being cast as THE TROLL and feeling like a troll with my ugly short hair.

Stuck to that shame was my understanding that the teacher did not give me a chance to be the cute Baby Goat.

That was the day I fell into the cave.

I became quite introverted.

I kept my gaze down all through elementary school feeling awkward and different with my short hair.

Sure, you think, it’s hair. Get over it.

Yet, hair is such a big deal to little girls — especially in the 1980s when Christie Brinkley’s and Brooke Shields’ images were everywhere with their gorgeous long locks.

I saw the light at the mouth of the cave when I was 12 years old.

It came with the song “One Singular Sensation” and glittery gold top hats.

My parents had taken my sisters and me to see a touring production of A Chorus Line, and I was enamored!

The costumes! The dancing! The singing! How the actors stood at the footlights and had to courage to…be SEEN!

Oh my gosh…I want to try that…I want to BE that…I want to be SEEN!

I could feel my 5-year-old self inching away from the cardboard diorama and further into the crowds around me.

I signed up for drama classes during my freshman year of high school.

I loved learning about the theatre. The parts of the stage, the types of plays, and the characters’ ranges all enthralled me.

Yet, when I had to perform monologues or scenes on the 4 x 12 plywood stage in front of the chalkboard, I felt like the ugly, ashamed kindergartner again.

Oh my gosh… they’re all looking at me…look down…talk quietly…just get through it.

My teenage mindset added: “You’re not good enough to be here. Step off the stage.”

My heart cried, “NO! I love this. I need to keep going.”

I scaled the cave walls of my soul with my fingernails to get closer and closer to the light I first saw in A Chorus Line.

I want to be “one singular sensation.” I want to be chosen by the director. I want a chance!

I knew I needed more training beyond what my drama class had to offer.

At the end of my sophomore year, I auditioned for a magnet performing arts program on the other side of the city and got in!

I dove into my studies of acting, directing, playwriting, dance, and design with teenagers from all over the city every afternoon.

One day during my junior year, I told my playwriting teacher about my experience in Billy Goat’s Gruff and my deep shame of being cast as THE TROLL.

In one breath, he simply said, “You never realized that she cast you as the lead in the play?”

Boom.

There it was.

I went from the bottom of my cave, barely seeing a granular speck of the sun, into an open field of sunflowers, and hovered above my own life with a bird’s eye view of that moment ten years prior.

I could see myself — small, kind, hopeful — getting cast as THE TROLL.

My sadness collapsing my spine.

I could see the teacher, proud of her choice of who could carry the play.

I wasn’t cast because she thought I most resembled THE TROLL.

She cast me because, out of all the kindergarteners, she felt I could carry the play.

In my aluminum-framed chair in the studio, I felt my breath move through the whole of my body and release my heart from its too-tight grip.

I felt my shame flake off my body like a bad sunburn knowing that my healed self would come out over time.

At that moment, I allowed myself to fully invest my curiosity about theatre practice.

I wanted to do it all so I could learn it all.

I started auditioning for plays at my home school and in the community.

I started to walk with a lift in my chest and a bit of sass in my step.

I look back now and marvel at how one comment from my teacher unlocked ten years of shame I had carried with me.

A mindset flip can happen just like that if you are open to receiving it.

My inner critic had created the toxic narrative of this event and reproduced it every day for over ten years.

My inner critic had spun it like a web around me, catching my dreams, my self-esteem, and my ideas about myself day after day.

Once I took a bird’s eye view of the story and created space between it and my deepest all-knowing self, I could see it wholly.

I saw myself compassionately.

I gave my teacher the benefit of the doubt to examine her intentions.

I gained a deeper understanding of the confidence my teacher had in me that I was able to reclaim for myself.

I went from being an awkward, yearning child to a confident risk-taker who eventually got her MFA in directing and Ph.D. in acting theory, worked as a professional actor, and became a performance trainer.

Taking a bird’s eye view is key to getting to the heart of your story.

Once you see all the elements within the circumstances, you can determine how they work together, and how you have shown up as the protagonist of the story of your life.

It’s from that deep-felt knowing that you take action to your next best step.

I ask you, Reader, how can you flip the switch on a narrative holding you back?

Get in touch and I’ll show you how to climb out of the cave and into your best light.