For the first two years of my life, I was basically bald. My mom didn’t know what to do because people would not stop thinking, due to how old I was and my extreme lack of hair, that I was a boy.
There was nothing we could do because — well, for one, I was only two, I was kind of unable to do anything — and two, there was no hair that my mom could even attempt to style. As I got older, this was not a problem I’ve faced. In fact, it’s been the opposite.
From blonde to brunette, short and long, my hair has gone through numerous phases and styles. But why does this matter? Well, it matters because hair shapes a lot more than just our faces, and sometimes, it can be shaped by a lot more than just our own feelings.
Society and the trends that exist in it play a large role in the way we perceive others. There are a lot of generalizations and opinions that we can form just based on observing someone. As someone who is a people watcher, I can understand why people mistook me for a boy. We don’t all deeply think about the numerous strangers we encounter daily. Sometimes, a look or brief observation is all we get.
I’m not saying it’s right, and obviously, there are so many flaws with judging or assuming traits about others based on their appearance; however, it’s something that happens all the time. My hair is now my most varied feature, but if you had told me that in middle school, I probably would have thought I would still be blonde — even all these years later.
All I wanted in middle school and the beginning of high school was to be blonde. Everyone seemed to be blond. It was trendy, and it’s never going to be trendy. In the public eye, spanning celebrities from Marilyn Monroe or Avril Lavigne, Tana Mongeau to Sabrina Carpenter, blondes — natural or dyed — have always and will always be famous. None of the women I listed above is famous solely because of their hair; however, it is a part of their personas.
Sporting her ties and dying my hair pink, I wanted to be Avril Lavigne so badly. Sure, instead of the effortlessly cool way she wore ties in her Sk8er Boi music video and red carpet photos, I wore mine in a more business professional way — at the ripe age of 11. However, I felt so powerful. Generally, there are a lot of really gross generalizations made about girls who are blonde, this strange connection between brains — or lack thereof— and hair color, which honestly doesn’t make sense to me. My inspiration for dying my hair blonde and trying to be like them heavily influenced my view that they were powerful and successful.
However, I was always unhappy with my blonde hair. Yes, there were some days when it looked fabulous and I felt like Sharpay Evans, but most of the time it just didn’t feel like me. Which is a hard pill to swallow when you’re just in middle school; but how else are you supposed to find your identity other than by trying things that don’t work?
I let my love for these celebrities, characters, and people around me influence me to believe that if I looked like them, then the confidence and presence they had would extend to me too, but that just wasn’t the reality. Looking in the mirror, I knew I had to listen to myself and try something new.
When COVID-19 hit my freshman year of high school, it was the perfect time to try something new. I’d been wanting to go brunette for a while, and not having to see people in person provided a safety net to try it out. There was still celebrity influence, this time Emma Chamberlain. However, when I looked at Pinterest photos of her hair or various models, I didn’t see them as I saw celebrities’ hair in middle school. I looked at them, thinking, This would look good on me. The choice to change my hair this time wasn’t for anyone other than myself.
I remember looking in the mirror after my first session, dying my hair back to brown, and it looked so different to me. It was really light still, but in a way, I immediately felt like myself again. It was weird because having brown hair wasn’t something that I had had in years. However, it felt like it was how my hair should have always been.
For the next few months, I continued to ask for deeper shades of brown, finally getting to a point where it was almost black. Which prompted me to dye it black — the exact opposite of the hair I had had just a few years before.
Ever since, I have tried so many different shades of brown. Dying it black led me to want lighter brown, and in order to achieve that more quickly, I cut most of my hair off. Sure, it was still past my shoulders, but it was another change that I hadn’t experienced since I was younger. There was a cyclical nature to my hair, trying new things only to slightly move backwards.
My hair is something that is intertwined with how I feel most myself, so that nothing anyone says could change the way I view my hair. That was a long time coming, though. There is a constant pressure to try trends, which in many ways can be a fun, eye-opening experience. However, there is no need to try every trend.
Middle school me had so many doubts about her blonde hair, but she probably would have kept the color permanently if I hadn’t stopped thinking about it. I’m so happy I tried something different. I’m not sure what perceptions people have of me now, like they did when I was little. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. My hair has never felt more me, although it took trying to be someone else to realize it.