Better off Red...

This is me. I am a natural red head. And proud.

But it hasn't always been that way.

I spent my childhood blissfully unaware of the fact that I was a little bit different. I wore My Little Pony dresses, played with cuddly toys and barbie dolls, and drew pictures of myself with my family; my hair always coloured with a bold red crayon. I busted with excitement at the prospect of playing Ariel and Ginger spice in family performances and plays at christmas. Pippy Long Stocking was one of my favourite movies. Yoram Gross' (the creator of Blinky Bill) famous red haired adventurer  Dot was on high rotation on our VCR player.  I took great delight in dressing up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz during book week at school, and generally had a natural gravitation towards anything involving red heads. I loved my hair and was happy.

Yoram Gross films' Dot and the Kangaroo, 1977

It wasn't until I got to high school that I quickly discovered, (or so I was told) that I was completely abnormal. My parents debated sending me to the co-ed Catholic school in Sydney's West, where my older brother had generally had a good experience. I was also accepted to a catholic girls school in Kingsgrove, 40 minutes from where I lived, but out of fear of travelling alone, and a desire to go to high school with people I already knew, regrettably, I chose the former. It was a sporty, predominantly anglo  co-ed school. The girls seemed gloriously tanned and blonde, dominating at netball and swimming carnivals and all of the sporting events. The boys weren't all that much chop. Most of them boring and immature, which was what I generally thought of most boys.  Within months I had begun to compare myself to the other girls, heart-broken that I was relegated to the bottom of the food chain with the 'nerds', 'weirdos' and 'uglies', who were the butt of  everyone's jokes.  There was only one other red head in my grade, a tall, gorgeous girl. I suppose both of us had never fully understood our point of difference until we were hurled into this  strange sort of Aryan environment.

What ensued was two years of continuous bullying and taunts. 'Ranga' 'Red haired- rat-rooter' 'matchstick' and 'fanta pubes' were just a sample of the horrible nicknames I was given. Everywhere I went, the canteen,the toilet, the quadrangle, the classroom, the teasing was constant.  I would come home from school every day in tears, sometimes I would cry so much that I'd be physically sick. My mother wrote letters to the Catholic education office, the Principal, and the year co ordinator , all to no avail. In the end the school suggested that it would be better for me to leave if I was so unhappy. So I left. coloured my hair blonde and began my new life at the school I should have gone to in the first place. The teasing had a long lasting legacy on my self esteem. It took me 8 long years to finally accept myself and go back to my original red colour. It has only been in the last year that I have finally started to enjoy being a red head and grown to love myself the way I am. Every day I am complimented by women who tell me my hair is beautiful and the envy of so many. I have grown to admire and love famous red heads again, and now I wouldn't change a thing for the world. My hair is a unique and special part of me.

So here are some famous red heads that I admire..

My favourite red head- even if it's not natural. 

Rachel McAdams in the Notebook:

 The moment I decided I wanted my red hair back!!!

Amy Adams

Victoria's Secret model, Cintia Dicker

Model Coco Rocha

Isla Fisher

Judy Garland

Ashlee Simpson- one of many people who longed to have red hair!!I personally think this suited her the best ;)

So there they are- the iconic red heads that make me proud to be red.

On a final note, there is an extremely problematic bullying culture in this country. I am very much not alone in my experience- there are thousands of children who go to school everyday and come home feeling worthless and depressed because of the nasty, humiliating taunts of others. The point of my sharing this is that I want young people to understand that school is not the end of the world- and it is not the best place to decide if you should accept yourself or not. It can be excruciatingly hard to fit in, and even more so to ignore people when they put you down and tease you. If I listened to everything that other people said, I would believe that I was a freak with strange hair, a big nose, pasty skin, and chicken legs. And you know what, for a while I'm sad to say I did believe that. But now I listen to the people who boost me, the hundreds of women who stop me when I'm shopping or at work to tell me how stunning my skin and hair are, and that no matter how much you tried you could never get my colour from a bottle. I believe now that I am blessed to be different; I am who I am, and I'm better off red.

It's also a little easier for my friends to spot me in a crowd ;)

love xx