I am 50. I have no idea how I got here, but one thing that I’ve started to realise over the last six months since my birthday is that I am different. I really noticed this yesterday when I was wandering back to the car after being in the Trafford Centre with my sister.
This difference hasn’t always been easy to live with, but now I am starting to really embrace my weird! Let me explain a bit more…
Ginger. Left Handed. Glasses
I have a lot of ‘differences’ to cope with, right? For a kid growing up in the 70s/80s, that was a bit shit.
1 – 2% of the population are ginger
10% of the world is left-handed
22% of the world is short-sighted or myopic.
Some maths that is beyond me on a Sunday afternoon would lead me to believe that I was a rare beast before I even started with the rest of my personality and style.
I am just special, right?
But when you’re a kid, that difference isn’t great at all, far from it. Kids are great at finding differences and being really cruel. I never felt like I was good enough, attractive enough or enough of anything for a very long time.
Don’t stare at the ginger!
So now I am older, I’ve realised that men have a thing about redheads; half of them just don’t realise it!
When I was younger, I really didn’t get it. I wanted to do anything to get rid of my ginger hair. I tried colouring it purple, which doesn’t work if you don’t strip the colour. You just need up with shit brown; everything ends up shit brown unless you decide to embrace the fire. Once I started embracing the fire, I realised that I got more attention, but not everyone can handle a redhead!
If you want a docile girlfriend, definitely don’t pick a redheaded Aries; you will get burned!
This isn’t always easy for me to handle, either. It can be really odd when a man totally holds your gaze on public transport or in a shop or something. We’re not used to it at the best of times, but there is something really odd about someone being fixated when you’ve not experienced it before.
I went to Prague in late 2009 and really felt uncomfortable with some of the stares that I got on the tram! It’s not even like I had my current buzz cut; I had a head full of fiery, curly red hair down my back.
But statistically, you are less likely to see redheads in Europe. There is a larger concentration of us in the UK. That’s something I’ve just had to get used to.
Not long after, I went to an event where some guy came and tapped me on the shoulder in a bar. He was an older guy, probably in his 60s; I was still in my late 30s, with all that red hair (think Disney’s Merida, and you’re not far off).
He told me that I should be proud of who I am!
At first, I was a bit shocked; I thought he was a bit odd… But he carried on telling me that he thought that I was a special person because of my red hair and blue eyes (except they change colour – but we’ll let him off!). He told me that he thought I was a pure Celt and that I was a very rare and beautiful creature indeed. He then proceeded to tell my partner that he was really lucky to have me and that he needed to take good care of me!
That was the first time anyone had openly come up to tell me that I was beautiful, and it was when I started to realise that difference is actually a good thing.
Modifications and more
I am not exactly easy on the eye.
I am so pale it is untrue, with this shock of red (now going grey) hair on the top of my head. What else could I do other than make myself stand out even more? I started getting tattoos, lots of them – I am not done yet. I am also pierced, with my septum being done about 12 months ago. I have black jewellery in all my piercings so that they stand out even more – there is a theme here, right?
Things are different now in that it’s not uncommon to see people who are pierced and tattooed these days, but it really makes me stand out even more, and I don’t care!
Whilst we’re at it, my tattoos are all unique to me, except for one, a Manchester Bee, which was one for charity after the Arena bombing.
Homogeny everywhere
So the point of this was the Trafford Centre yesterday, don’t worry, I’ve not forgotten!
Walking around there yesterday, I realised that I really don’t look like everyone else. There were so many people who all looked the same. A sea of women who all had similar coloured hair, in a similar style, wearing similar clothes, all with the same look on their faces. I don’t think it really hit me before how much homogeny has become the norm. I saw a girl with blue hair, but even she looked similar to everyone else. The more I looked for differences, the more similarities I saw.
It’s the same for guys too. I can’t say that I noticed anyone that looked really different.
Now, I am not saying I’m unique; far from it.
Every generation has subcultures where they think they’re different, but they are just a smaller subdivision of the whole. I was into the alternative scene, still am, and we did all have a ‘look’. But I am looking at this from the middle-aged woman who should be fading into beige perspective. Some people may tell me that I need to grow up or grow out of this – but this is very much who I am. The music and the look are very much the fabric of who I am.
And by god, I am not prepared to tone myself down for anyone!
If you don’t like it…
So my parting thought with all this is that if you don’t like it, you don’t have to look. But if you have that burning desire in your belly to stand out, then bloody well, go for it. Buzz cut your hair, get inked and pierced and wear what the fuck you want.
There is something massively liberating about being true to yourself, and not everyone can handle it!
Not Middle Aged 