Ugly.

I was a very ugly child.

The story goes that when I was born, I was so red faced, wrinkled and hairless that they had to ‘screw’ me out. When my maternal grandfather saw me, he stated, with a touch of loving disappointment; ‘well …  she’s definitely a van Tuil’, whilst for my 2-years older, smooth skinned, dark-haired sister, he had pulled out the cigars.

After a few months I straightened out and had a fairly good run as a toddler with platinum blonde hair and a rosy face but it was downhill from 7-ish until my mid-20’s and then if I’m being really honest, I only hit my stride in my late 30’s.

My mum once said; ‘you were my ugly duckling and now you’re my beautiful swan.’ It was obviously a face that at times was difficult even for a mother to love.

At around 7 or 8, my hair was cut short and it was not uncommon for randoms to say to my parents; ‘how lovely, two boys and two girls!’ when really it was 3 girls and 1 boy. Mum suggested I wear earrings to try and avoid further confusion.

Sunburn was the bane of my life. Not a summer went by that the hole in the ozone layer didn’t wreak havoc on my delicate northern European skin. Painfully sticking to a single layer of bed sheet slathered in cold aloe vera followed by a week of skin shedding like a snake in the autumn was a standard issue summer experience. I still only come in two shades; red or white. 

By 13 my acne was so savage mum cried over it. We tried multiple treatments but nothing seemed to make a difference, I was cursed.

Along with the acne, I also acquired an arm pit sweating problem. Thankfully the sweat wasn’t odorous but for a number of years my arms were glued to my sides to hide the massive sweat patches. It was so intense I used to sweat through my school uniform and then through my blazer, it’s a wonder I didn’t suffer from dehydration.

At around the same time I decided that a perm would be a good idea; perhaps I could distract the eye from my acne and sweat patches with a spiral perm. My friends mum came round and did the honours with her at-home kit. I swear my hair was never the same again. It just went big, like I had a triangle on my head, it looked like a wig. That wasn’t just my impression of myself, some random bloke actually shouted it out at me so mum thought wearing a hat would be a good idea, I built up quite the collection of hats until I think the decision was made to just lop the whole mess off.

At 9 I had an accident on a waterslide in the outback town of Katherine in the Northern Territory. I was going down a small-ish waterslide into a pool at a caravan park we were staying on an extended holiday travelling around Australia. My older sister was standing on the end of the slide doing that thing where you jump off the slide at the last minute into the pool to avoid being crashed into. Now I write it out it doesn’t sound as fun as it obviously was at the time…

Anyway, I can’t actually recall what part of me hit what part of her or what part of the slide but there was a lot of blood and 1 and a half front teeth missing. As this was 1990, we were at the pool completely unsupervised by either parent and whilst there were a lot of other kids and parents about, there was a complete lack of assistance offered by any of them, so by the time we found mum and rushed back to the pool to find the teeth, they were long gone.

As it transpires, I had very big front teeth so losing some length wasn’t the biggest loss but a whole tooth, that really was a shitter!

At 12, I had braces put on and thanks to my geriatric orthodontist who probably thought ‘she’s no looker anyway’, my stand-in front tooth was done away with and my braces were installed omitting a front tooth. This was the situation for about 12 months until the geriatric retired and a new orthodontist started and I think he was a bit appalled I’d been left to walk around like that and he popped a tooth in for me. I started smiling again.

My braces stayed on until I was 15. 

So, between the acne, the arm pit sweating, the sunburnt or ghost like translucent skin, the lack of front teeth, the braces, the big-wig hair, I had a killer look going on.

Whilst I can laugh about it now, it was rough!

I really wanted to be interesting to look at, like ‘she’s not pretty but there’s something interesting about her…’ or as the French would say Jolie Laide. I felt wasted and frustrated in an ugly body, like my insides didn’t match my outsides. I thought I was entertaining and witty and therefore I should have packaging that matched; I really thought I should have been a red-head, it would have made more sense.  

I mentioned my ugliness as a child to my gorgeous, tall, blonde German friend this week who tells me that she too was a very ugly child. I scoff at her claim as she couldn’t be more genetically blessed. She tells me that outside of the missing front teeth, though she too had above average sized front teeth, she suffered from all the same afflictions but adds that she also had to wear an eye patch.

We called it evens.

Whilst I never did become a red-head, I did get my teeth straightened out with enough metal implements, braces, plates, injections and implants in my mouth over the years to make a dentaphobic cry. It also turns out that oily skin as a kid is a winner when you’re older; less wrinkles. So all in all, these days I’d say it came good and I’m structurally sound.