by Trish Little

Created on: May 31, 2008

IDENTITY CRISIS

Maizie lay snugly curled up in her bed and for all intents and purposes she looked contented, however, she was not. She was deep in thought, and it seemed the longer she spent doing this, the more confused and anxious she became.

Being home alone always did this to her, and it seemed to her she was being left on her own more and more often.

"Of course," she mused with reluctant acceptance, "I shouldn't be surprised. After all, I am different."

She was very young when she began to notice that she was different from the other members of her family, but any questions she had raised over the years had been met with odd looks, sniggers or outright contempt.

How they could not see it, and why they chose to ignore it, mystified her. The older she got, the more it concerned her. She wanted answers.

The differences were so glaringly obvious. Their hair, for example. Her parents and siblings all had brown hair, admittedly of various shades, but brown all the same. Hers was red.

Their eye coloring was also different. Hers were green. They all had brown eyes; some light brown, and some so dark brown they looked black, although one of her siblings had hazel-colored eyes, so that, at least, had made her feel a little better about it.

"But you have beautiful eyes," her sisters often assured her. "Better than our boring brown eyes."

The differences included names. Maizie.

"What sort of name is that?" she questioned. "It's nothing like my sisters' beautiful names."

She loved Jacinta and Jasmine's names. To her, their names sounded like sweet-smelling flowers. Even her brothers had good names. Typical strong sounding boys' names Kane and Karl. Her name sounded like a corn crop, and she hated it. She recalled a discussion the family had several years ago about each of their names.

"We gave you the name, Maizie, because when you were born your hair was a gorgeous golden-yellowy color and it reminded us of grandpa's wheat farm," mother told her one day.

"And she actually thought I should be honored by that," Maizie grumped.

As she got older her hair got darker and ended up being the reddish color it was now. They told her it would most likely fade and go back to the original color when she got a lot older, but that statement did nothing to console her.

"As if " she exclaimed as the resentment rose within her.

Even their interests were vastly different. All her family, parents and siblings alike, were interested in action and team sports like skateboarding, push bike riding,

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