By Isabella Fredrickson
“New year, new hair!”
It has been done by countless celebrities year after year, and I’m sure you’ve heard at least one person utter the saying the moment January begins.
As the clock ticked down and 2020 rolled around, the thought of doing anything remotely different to my hair terrified me. It took years for me love my curly hair, and I finally grew my locks to where they can be considered “long.”
Even though my ends were beyond dry, I couldn’t bear the thought of cutting it — I’d lose the length that took forever to acquire.
A change in color wasn’t an option. My natural hair is as dark as it gets, and the thought of having it lighter than my eyebrows was an immediate turn-off. What if the bleach ruined my curls? Changing my hair in any way seemed to be impossible.
Like most, I made resolutions for the new year, coming up with changes I wanted. I planned to go to the gym more often, go to sleep earlier, and get into a better morning routine.
However, come the first week of January, nothing changed. All the things I had told myself I would improve on or do more of shared the same status as the hair on my head — unchanged and probably to remain the same as the last year.
I continued to put off these resolutions just like I was continuing to put off trimming my dead ends.
My mom, on the other hand, was already taking control of the new year. She’s a fearless and beautiful woman who has rocked medium length hair, a bob, bangs, highlights, and low lights. You name it, she’s done it. Within the past decade, her hair gone from as dark as mine, to an ashy blonde and all over brown shade spectrum. So once the new year came around, she decided to book herself a partial balayage.
She asked me if I wanted to get my hair done too, and all of the things that could go wrong began to run through my head. My mother noticed my overthinking, and bluntly said, “Your hair has been the same for years, it needs a change.”
She had a point.
After that comment, however, I began to think about what other aspects of my life needed a transformation. My laziness? My careless choices with money? Indeed, I did have old habits that needed a change, so why not do the same with my hair?
I was still super hesitant. What if it looked bad or what if it damaged my hair?
But, my mom was offering to take me to get my hair done. She went to the best salon in our area and they even have certified curly hair specialists, so the chance of my hair getting ruined or looking bad was entirely low.
And even if I didn’t like it, at the end of the day, it’s just hair — it’ll grow back. I was not going to let the keratin and dead skin cells growing out of my scalp define my beauty.
I began to realize that I shouldn’t be afraid of change. Not only was this a new year but a new decade! I couldn’t go through life with the same hair I had for the entirety of the last decade.
I decided then and there was no better way to start 2020 than with a whole new hairstyle.
You can’t expect yourself to change your inner habits you can’t change your outer appearance. And with that in mind, I decided to go all in.
Before my appointment, my whole hair was entirely natural dark-brown color. After a partial balayage, it contained highlighted pieces of caramel curls. I also beat my fear of losing length, and chopped off 3 and a half inches, getting rid of all of my split ends.
The finished product was incredible. My hair was shorter, looked so much healthier, and the color was beautiful — I loved it so much.
The whole experience was empowering. I conquered my fear of change I had harbored for so long, and I no believed my long hair was what made me beautiful.
Since my hair makeover, I have felt fresh and brand new. My motivation to stick to my resolutions has never been higher. If I was able to change a physical feature of mine, I had no excuse not to make changes to my mindset.
I am so inspired and excited to be the best version of myself this new year and decade, and it is all thanks to my new hair.
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