Alaina Rainey

Bosom Besties

Imagine being a twelve-year-old girl. Not only are you a girl at the most awkward time of your life, but you are an awkward girl with hair that sticks at least a foot from your head in a mass of frizz and spirals. You have acne covering your forehead and nose; your limbs and movements resemble a newborn giraffe; and that’s just you on the outside. Inside, you are bursting with naïve opinions so packed inside your head that they must explode out of your mouth at an incredibly loud and squeaky decibel. In summary, you are not necessarily painful to look at but not easy enough on the eyes for others to overlook your obnoxious conversation.

Oh, and your name is Alaina Rainey, which no one on EARTH knows how to spell. Now you know exactly how it felt to be me, and yes, I was every bit as angsty and melodramatic as this paragraph.

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Thankfully, when I was twelve, I met Anne Shirley, the beloved redhead of the Anne of

Green Gables series. Anne and I immediately became “bosom friends.” I compared her disdain for her freckles and red hair with my hatred for my acne and afro. Both she and I had beautiful best friends and a classroom mean girl, who was mean yet so pretty it was okay. We both wrangled with our female guardians, she for an amethyst brooch and puffed sleeves, I for the chance to watch The Karate Kid and wear shorter shorts. Most importantly, we both loved to read and sound eloquent, though most of my eloquence was mimicry. I memorized most of

“The Highwayman” just to sound as sophisticated as Anne. There was playground within walking distance of my house during my Green Gables phase, and part of the path to the playground went through a small wooded area and was shaded by trees. In Anne of Green

Gables, Anne and Matthew pass through rows of trees with beautiful, white blossoms. Anne is enraptured and names it the White Way of Delight. I was so desperate to make my world look like Anne Shirley’s that I decided to name the wooded path to the playground the White Way of

Delight. There was not a white flower to be seen on those trees, but I just imagined the leaves as creamy blossoms. I remember being joyous when I spotted a residential street named

Lovers Lane, and hoping my family would move to a house on that street. I knew that it would bring me closer to being Anne Shirley. Looking back, I guess I could say my love for Anne of

Green Gables was a bit out of control, but everyone is allowed one crazy obsession a lifetime, right?

Anne’s optimism is what helped me cope with the burdens of my life. She reminded me that each day was new with no mistakes in it. Her quirky mix of wild feeling and practicality mirrored my own. She taught me to be confident in my uniqueness. Anne found her worth in books and knowledge, valuing learning and imagining more than the opinions of others. Anne helped me realize that my worth did not have to be measured by my appearance but by more substantial traits like a desire to learn and create. It is funny how similar Anne and I are even now as adults. Thanks to the triviality of societal trends, my hair—tamer than it once was but still crazy—is now “in style” just as Anne’s red hair became an admirable auburn as she grew older. Both of us grew a bit more likeable and less strange with time, though still incredibly passionate, and we both chose to be teachers.

I still read voraciously, and as an adult I have tried to read new genres of books about a variety of topics. I want to grow my mind and further my creativity. Anne taught me that knowledge is power—not a villainous power but an “I can do anything if I put my mind to it” power. As I grew older it became important to me to enable other people to powerfully use their knowledge. I want them to know that with a mixture of effort and practicality, they can achieve great things.

I want them to feel free to determine those great things on their own, apart from the pressures of society and family, just like Anne. Though I no longer feel I must live on Lovers Lane and have forgotten every single line of “The Highwayman,” I hope that Anne Shirley spunk and determination remain in my soul as long as I’m breathing. And in my next life, I better have red hair that deepens to a lovely auburn á la Anne.