The Carrot Who Thought It Was a Cabbage

A crunchy, colourful take on being unapologetically yourself!

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

I am a carrot. A perfectly crunchy, vitamin-packed, orange little root who just so happened to grow up in a cabbage patch. Not the easiest start, I can tell you.

For as long as I can remember, the cabbages told me I was wrong. Too bright. Too crunchy. Too… carroty. And because I desperately wanted to belong, I believed them.

So I wrapped myself in cabbage leaves. Thick, green camouflage. I practiced the roundness, learned the etiquette, and even tried speaking fluent “cabbage.” Eventually, I fooled everyone. Well almost.

Because no matter how carefully I tended my mask, streaks of orange always found their way out. My leaves wilted faster than theirs. I got tired from pretending. Too much sunlight, too much noise, too much… everything. I’d retreat underground to recover, but when I emerged, the cabbages scolded me for being difficult, unsociable, rude.

I wasn’t rude. I was exhausted.

One day, I thought I might disappear into the soil forever. But then, something miraculous happened.

A little girl plucked me from the earth. She didn’t gasp in horror at my bright orange skin. She didn’t try to tape cabbage leaves back onto me. She just smiled, eyes wide with delight, and whispered, “Well hello there, little carrot.”

In her basket, I met others like me… crooked, colourful, wonderfully wonky vegetables. Some had wild green hair, others were rainbow-hued. And suddenly, for the first time ever, I wasn’t hiding. I laughed. I moved. I hummed. I shone.

Finally, I was home.

Of course, as we passed the cabbage patch, the old gang couldn’t resist ruffling their leaves and making their opinions known…

“Why label yourself a carrot? Just put your leaves back on,” one grumbled, rolling his beady eyes. “Everyone’s a carrot these days”

Another sighed, “Being different doesn’t mean you’re a carrot. I’m crunchy in places too.”

“My neighbour’s nephew’s a carrot,” said a third, “and you don’t look anything like him.”

I smiled. “Once you’ve met one carrot… you’ve met one carrot.”

One cabbage tried telling me how calling myself a carrot makes me even more carroty. To which I thought: Maybe. But Imagine that - a world full of carrots finally living out loud. How wonderful.

But the best cabbage of all was the one who didn’t argue. He didn’t scoff or sigh or deny my carroty existance. Instead, he began reciting the history of carrots, his voice calm and steady - I liked his directness. Nothing to decipher:

“The carrot, or Daucus Carota, is a root vegetable… orange, purple, yellow… cultivated since ancient Persia…”

I looked at him. Then I saw it - the faintest flash of orange beneath his tired, curling leaves. A streak he hadn’t managed to hide.

I guess some carrots spend a lifetime buried in cabbage leaves, camouflaging their wonderfully unique brains.

And so here I am - a carrot, no longer a faulty cabbage. I don’t need camouflage anymore. I belong to the basket of colourful vegetables, each of us different, each of us needed to weave together the rich tapestry of life’s beautiful diversity.

If you take nothing else from my story, take this: you are not a broken version of something else. You are your own perfectly imperfect vegetable, and the world is brighter because of it.

I won’t end with a dramatic goodbye because I don’t like goodbyes (or hellos come to think of it). I’ll just offer a slightly awkward, carroty wave and a quietly leave…. the….

Text message: Sorry I didn’t say goodbye. Lovely seeing you. Carrot xx