When I was in high school, I wore my hair the exact same way every day. Every few months I would get a trim with the same exact layering. I would have it cut just below my shoulder and then grow it out until it was almost too long to manage. And when my friends started adding highlights and lowlights and changing their hair color, I never once asked my mom if I could do it. Because I didn’t like the way it looked when it started to grow out. And I didn’t know what I would want to do with it anyway.
But mostly, I was scared. Scared I would hate it and have to live with it. But hair grows out. And if you have hair like mine, it grows out twice as fast as everyone else’s.
In college, I got a little more creative with the way I styled my hair, because nobody wants to get up and do their hair perfectly every day when you have 8 am classes. But I still never made any big changes. And let's be real, putting the front of your hair in a little poof might get it out of your face, but it doesn't count as significant change.
And then finally two years after getting married, I finally decided to take the plunge and dye my hair! And a year later I got bangs too! And apparently it's such a big change that a lot of the people who watched me grow up didn't recognize me right away! And I know the bangs make me look younger, but I don't care. I've kind of given up on that battle anyways.
Do I love it? Not always. Apparently my hair LOVES hair dye, so if we use medium brown, it comes out black. We ended up using the light brown option, which is really dark brown on me, and I still have a little bit of the Snow White effect. And since my hair grows so quickly, I end up hiding my roots with a ponytail for a couple weeks so I don't have to get it dyed every 4 weeks.
I wear my bangs pinned back about half the time, because they're high maintenance, they don't look great after I go to the gym, and I don't wear them down with my glasses. And in the summer there's the humidity battle as well! For a couple months this summer I tried to do the side sweeping bangs and my hair was not having it! I think they only looked cute on two different days. Fortunately one of those was when we were on vacation and actually taking a lot of photos!
(Pre-dye, the initial dye, way too dark look, happy medium with new bangs, attempt at sweeping, and back to regular bangs.)
It's definitely not perfect. Some days I love the way my hair looks and other days I hate it. But I think that's pretty normal. And a couple months ago I decided to grow out the color completely and stick with low-lights or something else that needs a little less maintenance, but the bangs are definitely sticking around for a bit.
At least now I'm not afraid to try something new.
But I'm not cutting my hair short anytime soon. Not gonna happen.