Everyone goes through a little bit of a rebellious stage, whether it's a small pink streak in their hair or a tattoo on their arm. Now, when I went through the whole rebellion phase...it kind of stuck for a while and hasn't gone away. I found myself engulfed in the crazy hair colors, piercings, and tattoos...they made me different and I loved it. It made me feel beautiful looking into the mirror and seeing bright blue hair, and shopping for jewelry for my nose was one of my favorite things to do.

There comes a time in someone's life where something they enjoy is judged, though, and since I've been working in customer service...I learned that A LOT of people judge. Customers would act rudely towards me for no apparent reason and would make sly comments about "that thing" in my nose. I usually just brushed it off, but sometimes it got to me. At first I never really thought someone would judge me so harshly based on my fashion choices until someone made a specific customer complaint and mentioned "that girl with the blue hair". It made me a little angry, but I still had hope. Maybe that person was having a bad day and was just taking it out on me, I couldn't be too sure, though.

Then an idea came to me. What if I colored my hair a normal color for once and hid my septum ring? Would people treat me differently, and if so why? It was a huge change but I did it. I said goodbye to my blue locks and settled for a brown color. My septum ring was just pushed up into my nose, and I now looked like a normal member of society. I got varying reactions from family friends...most of them being "wow that's different" and "Thank god" (mostly from my family). When I got into work, though...I noticed a big difference in customer attitude.

People smiled at me more and started to strike up conversation with me. I thought, maybe it was just that day but as the night went through I noticed no strange glances and whispering. The thought of this kind of bummed me out, though, because I really didn't think people would be so judgmental like that. Day two of working ended up getting the same results, even from regular customers. People complimented my looks and said I looked better this way...but I didn't think so. Judging someone on something so small as their hair color is wrong. I'm a very nice person and anyone who knows me personally would think so.

Life is too short not to have fun, so go crazy with that bottle of pink dye...and get that tattoo you've always wanted. Screw what others think because at the end of the day is irrelevant. If it makes you feel beautiful, that is all that matters!