Ever since I was little, I could always count on one compliment about my physical appearance no matter how icky the rest of me might look: people seem to love my hair.

This is not me but if you were an Asian girl growing up, I can guarantee you most likely had this haircut: The bowl cut with bangs.

People would always be coming up to our parents telling me how much they loved seeing my sisters’ and my long hair at church. We used to be told we shouldn’t cut because of how pretty it was and how they were all jealous their kids didn’t have it.

It’s really funny though because my hair annoys me. I have a very vivid memory of prepping for Columbus Day in first grade and we all made Christopher Columbus hats out of paper. After cutting them out, the plan was to paper clip them to our heads. Now, I’m pretty sure it was a combination of the texture of my hair and how it can be slippery since it gets sleek and the fact that I’m convinced my head is abnormally shaped but I was the ONLY person in my class unable to get the hat to stay on their head. And of course I got teased for it because kids just are cruel.

I know, the grass is always greener on the other side. I envy people who have curly hair or at least SOME wave to it. My hair is super thick and straight. Yes, I know some of you are super jealous of that, but let me tell you, that can be a pain. I am SUPER jealous of all you people who can put your hair up with just a PENCIL. I mean what kind of sorcery is this???

And I don’t even have the typical Asian hair. The stereotype of Asian girl hair is jet black, super straight, super sleek hair that seems to be perfect all the time. Nope, not me. Thanks to taking after my dad’s hair, mine gets really poufy if I let it air dry without doing any combing to it. Basically I feel like I have Hermione Granger hair before she discovers Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion.

Even though most people really liked my hair, I still got teased for it. I remember in middle school, my hair did this thing where a lot of it would fall to the front but it would leave a little bit in the back. And some girls decided that it made me look like I had a rat-tail and I got teased for it. To this day, I still worry about that so I’m always fiddling with my hair to make sure it doesn’t do that. And honestly, I never seem to see anyone else with this problem ever so I worry sometimes that it’s just me.

Senior year in high school I was tired of having the same hair so I chopped it ALL off.

I mean my hair was down to my wait and was actually really heavy. It kept getting caught on the back of my chair at school and SO MUCH TANGLES. So I went super short.

Actually it was shorter than this but I don’t have any of those pics from that time period.This was during those rebellious years of my life, when I also got my eyebrow pierced. Having shorter hair was very freeing but it was also harder to maintain. Plus people kept thinking I was a boy (seriously, really?) so eventually I regrew it out again. But it was nice to have done it once in my life.

These days, I’m all about coloring my hair. No, not because I’m trying to cover up gray hair. Growing up when you have the blackest hair possible, you can’t really do anything with it. While everyone else can just use kool-aid or Jello to make their hair all sorts of colors, I’m stuck with THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT all the time. Even trying boxed hair dyes will MAYBE make your hair the tiniest bit lighter if you stand in the sun. I even tried in college using a home bleaching kit with the help of my roommate and it only made SOME of my hair turn a shade of orange. I’m super jealous of all the Asians who can color their hair very easily.

I finally decided to get my hair professionally highlighted and I really like doing it. Because that’s the ONLY way you can actually get my hair to change to a certain color.

Also fauxhawk.

Currently I am at the blondest I will ever be in my life.

I decided, what the hey. YOLO.