On June 4^th, 2015 one of my life goals was reached: I became a Smurf.

Well no I didn’t literally become a Smurf because a) that’s impossible and b) Smurfs have white hats (and yellow hair if we are referring to Smurfette) and c) blue skin; while, I had blue hair and pale skin. For three years I had been asking my mother to allow me to dye my entire head full of hair blue, and it was realized this past summer.

Let’s begin with my physical appearance. I am a five foot six inch, pale girl with a nose piercing and bright blue hair. I personified what most people think as a punk or, to be more in times with the lingo, an ’emo’ or ‘scene’ kid. It never really hit me how judgmental people were simply based on appearance until my hair suddenly turned from brown to blue.

The day my hair became blue, I helped my friend’s mom move her supplies from her old third grade classroom to her new fifth grade classroom, and all the teachers had something to say about my hair. There was one statement said that stuck out to me the most.

It was another second grade teacher and she asked me, “Sweetie, does your mother know what you did to yourself?”

This wasn’t the only instance where someone asked something that concerned my mom and her knowledge of my hair being blue.

When I went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for a week and at a theme park, many of the workers there felt the need to comment something along the lines of: “I would never let my daughter dye her hair like that.” or “Did your mother really let you dye your hair blue?” It was so weird to me to be approached like that, and many times people who I hardly knew would ask to touch my hair and really, that’s just bizarre- going up to someone and touching their hair because it was unlike everyone else is weird.

I hardly notice when people are staring at me in horror, and when I do it doesn’t faze me, I don’t allow the thoughts of others to influence the way I feel. While still in Tennessee my father would comment on how funny it was that when I went into public places suddenly every adult looked at me with an intrigued expression, and would further comment on how these people would judge me on how I looked with almost disgust and reproach when he knew that I was the biggest nerd in the room.

Personally, this whole summer was quite comical. Everywhere I went people would comment on my hair, and I’m not kidding. Even while going on a run I would hear people yell from their driveways “Hey! Nice hair!” My friends thought it was funny but also ridiculous. My blue hair was so substantial that when I went to the mall with a friend a guy followed us from one store to another just to get my number. Which now that I think about it, is kind of creepy.

In fact, the best part of the summer was my job. I work as a lifeguard at one of my neighborhood pools and a fellow lifeguard convinced a plethora of the kids at the pool that I was a mermaid. Since then I’ve been approached by little kids about why my tail doesn’t show up in the pool (Hint: it’s because I need to be in the ocean for my legs to change into a tail.) and if I had any secret mermaid superpowers (which I don’t).

I was approached by three little girls who are at the pool constantly and one of them- let’s call her Joy- followed me around the pool as I vacuumed it (and yes, you can vacuum a pool, why do you think it’s so clean?). Joy was one of the girls that one of my coworkers told about me being a mermaid, and she questioned me about its truth. Of course, not wanting to explicitly lie or ruin the girl’s dreams of mermaids being real, I kept my answers vague.

One question she had stuck out to me- and please note at that point in time she was asking me these questions I had recently dyed my hair back to brown for school- it was: “Did God make you to be a mermaid?” Honestly, come on, how am I supposed to lie/be vague when she asked that? The only reply I could come back with was: “God made me the way he wanted to,” which didn’t answer her question completely but did allow me to not lie.

Because yes, whatever deity people believe in or don’t, I was made the way some higher power wanted- blue hair, pale skin, pierced nose and all.