From a young age, you start to realize that people are staring at you and you don't fully understand why until you get a little older.

Being a natural redhead when I was younger meant that people always assumed I was adopted because my parents have brown and black hair.

I even went to Mexico with them once and they almost refused to let me back over the border with them, because they didn't think they were my real parents.

Not a lot of kids in my classes had red hair, so I always stood out like a sore thumb. Once you hit middle school and people start to believe its cool to put other kids down, redheads were always a target.

I used to get asked if I had a soul and why I had so many freckles. Random people in the hallways that didn't even know me would stop me to ask.

As you can imagine, I resented my hair for a long time and had self-esteem issues.

In today's society, it's trendy to have red hair and people constantly attempt to dye their hair red.

So I get lots of questions like "Is that your natural hair color?" or "Who do you go to? Your hair is so pretty!"

Which I guess is a compliment but it's also kind of insulting. It's very hard to get a natural red color from a box or a professional even, so why assume that it's not real?

I've slowly come to love my hair, even though I still hate it sometimes.

I appreciate it in pictures now and have learned to say thank you even to the comments that seem more like insults.

Now I'm trying to love my pale skin and freckles, but that's a whole new fight in itself. At least I appreciate my hair now.