As far back as I can remember I idolized the Disney branded Princess but yet my soul craved the strength Of Xena The Princess Warrior
The perfection, the beauty? My God the luster of dreams! To be noble and gentle enough to sing and have the animals join you but to also be gorgeous and valiant like the warrior I watched with my mother?
+
I felt awkward and weird and boyish.
I was a flame of a child. Wielding bright red locks with freckled skin always just rolling around for the sake of messy adventure. I had wild curls that didn't make sense. My teeth were far from the perfection I grew up watching on television, in movies.
I was inherently jealous of any and every girl with bright blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and more importantly a sun-kissed tan. That was my idea of beauty. How could it not be?
My sister was awkward as well. In fact growing up she was no stranger to dirt caked hands and odd haircuts. I blame the haircuts humorously on my mother tho, we learned young that scissors and vision under the influence of alcohol was just not a good idea.
Throughout school we were both teased relentlessly. The thing we were tortured for the most?
You would not believe the malicious comments we heard only as kids!
Many of which aren't appropriate enough for me to repeat. We were called little Devils and the kids would joke that we were actually Evil. As a little girl when you're left out of foursquare because some kids think you're bad well that just hurts. Middle school? That was even worse! I was tortured in middle school. That was when being tan was the thing. Not only was it over my hair but now it was my skin too. "casper, ghost, pasty, milk jug." I was told more than once if I would "go get a tan" I would actually be.....pretty.
But yet so many adults told me in the future it'd be different. I'd love it.
Every girl around me was tanning their skin and they looked so beautiful! I wanted to be beautiful too! So I had my first go round with self tanner. I just knew that it would finally make me feel beautiful.
It was my first experience with fake tanner. And I went OVERBOARD. Yes, I turned orange and even worse my palms were copper.
All of the girls I admired; they laughed at me. Well that just made me try harder! My new thing, in between practicing my fake tanning skills, was laying out smothered in baby oil.
I literally soaked myself and laid out in the sun for as long as I could possibly stand it. Well I have what people refer to as porcelin skin and I got some of the worst sunburns of my life.
I could not tell you the amount of times I literally fried my little body outside in our yard, praying that I could just get some kind of a brown hue. It took me a very long time to accept the beauty of my skin and hair, too long. I was an adult once I realized how truly special it was to be a ginger. I realized that like a rose it made me stand out! The tables turned and the same girls who tortured me have spent big bucks on trying to obtain my hue. It took me so long just to embrace my beauty because growing up my peers taunted me for the very thing that makes me memorable.
