For those who know me, one of my biggest obsessions is my hair.
I love being creative, trying new hairstyles, sometimes even new hair colors, and just expressing myself through my hair.
I’m best known for my slick back spiky buns, if you will.
I’m a natural blonde, but nowadays, I get highlights in it to make it even blonder.
During the summer after my freshman year of high school, I decided that I wanted to temporarily dye my hair from bright blonde to dark brown.
Yes, I know that this is an extreme change, but it was something I was thinking about doing for a long time, so it was worth it.
This is what started my entire hair journey.
Unfortunately, the “temporary” dye made my hair fade out to be a bright orange color after a while, which was not lovely (sorry gingers).
After this, I continued to dye my hair dark brown, and then, I fully started dying it black.
I also started experimenting with cutting my own hair (did NOT work out well the first time).
So, for most of high school, my hair was short and black/dark brown.
The people who know me in college know me as this long blonde-haired girl.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being blonde, and it took me forever to get my hair back to the color that it is now, so I probably wouldn’t change it that drastically again.
But my problem was my long hair.
Again, I love having long hair and accessorizing/styling it however I want.
But, in my mind, that era had to come to an end.
My life has changed a lot since having short hair.
I am a person who truly believes that hair holds memories, which I think is so special, but those memories sometimes need to be kept on the inside and not the outside.
I was holding on to my long hair for so long because I would still be someone recognizable to those no longer in my life.
That might not make sense to some, but there are people who have only known me as the girl with the long, blonde hair.
But in my heart, I am still that young girl with short hair, big dreams, and a bright future ahead.
So, I decided to bring her back.
In the midst of many other personal feelings, I felt like something in my life needed to change.
Before you think that this was a quick and irrational decision, I thought about it for months, and I mean, who cares, hair grows back!
It felt like it all happened in a split second. One second, I had this beautiful (yet extremely outgrown) long, blonde hair, and the next, I had 10 inches of my old self lying on the bathroom counter.
But in that moment, all I could do was look at myself in the mirror and smile.
I smiled because I’m surrounded by so many beautiful people who have never known this version of me and finally get to experience her.
And because I can show up to class the next day with a cute new look.
But I smiled especially because I actually feel like I can recognize myself again.
I would not change this decision for anything because I finally feel a sense of comfort within myself that I’ve been craving for so long.
So welcome back, diva! You’ve been sorely missed.