Why didn't anybody TELL ME!?!?!

Dear Friends and Family that I Trusted:

Tonight, for the first time, as a 26-year-old woman, I faced reality. For the past 14 years (before I was about 12 years old, I think they were just sort of brown), if you asked me what color my eyes were, you would get one of two answers:

1) "Green", accompanied by a death stare that said, "I dare you to argue it!"
or 2) "Sort of a green with a gold/brown star in the middle, with yellow and brown specks...I don't really know what to call them. They change with my hair or my shirt, and when I cry or wash my face..."

I relate to songs about girls with green eyes. Spencer learned to play one on the guitar for me, which made me cry. My [expired] driver's license says, "eyes: grn". In all these years, did nobody feel it was their responsibility to tell me my eyes were HAZEL?

Spencer claims that in the beginning of our time together he told me this, and that I was so mad at him, and argued it so strongly that he dropped it and never brought it back to my attention. I have no recollection of this.

Tonight he looked up "Hazel Eyes", and here are some things we found:

"Hazel eyes are not one color. It is a name for a combination of colors: golds, greens and browns. My eyes have a dark green circle on the outer edge, going in with lighter greens and specks of gold into a starburst effect with a gold edge, inside that is a lighter brownish gold color with starburst lines inside to the pupil. The colors seem to change with hair and clothing color. The eye color becomes significantly greener with the salt of tears."

"My Gramma's eyes are so hazel. They look greenish gold most of the time. But if she wears something that is really green they turn to green, then if she wears blue they almost look dark blue..."

and an excerpt from Wikipedia: ...light brown near the pupil and charcoal or amber/dark green on the outer part of the iris (and vice versa) when observed in sunlight.Above: picture from the web of a hazel eye, with more gold/less green than mine typically have.
Below: My eyes. Nevermind my intense eyebrows, this was taken the day after I got my eyebrows tattooed in Thailand ($25!). This is a picture Spencer took to prove to me that I wasn't really crossing my eyes--another sad moment in my life.

Okay, now let me put this into perspective. I'll paint a picture for you:

Let's imagine that you carry a strange discoloration on your left cheek (you choose which one). You spend your whole life wondering about that spot and thinking it isn't something that can easily be explained, or something that anybody else can truly appreciate. Then one day you find an article on the internet that clearly describes YOU! Your little idiosyncracy that you thought was so strange is actually totally normal. In fact, there is a word to describe it--birthmark--a word you've heard a million times before. Do you feel that everything you've ever believed to be true is now a lie?

Well, hello world of people who know how to answer the question, "What color are your eyes?". I guess I'll be joining you now. I'm just trying to get used to it. In a way, I'm grateful, although I'll miss "green".

Now that my eye-color has been explained, I'll have more time to sit and ponder my other genetic mutations, like,
"Why don't my arms have any hair on them?",
or, "Where the heck are my eyebrows?",
"Where did this cute little nose come from?",
or especially, "How in the world was I, clearly a redhead, born with brown hair?"

So, I hope you all feel guilt in your hearts that you let me go on like this for so many years. You could have just told me. I have hazel eyes.