Bleached
In twenty-two minutes and four seconds, I will put on a pair of gloves and step into the shower, rinsing the bleach from my hair. The sensation is not unfamiliar — I bleached my hair for the first time five years ago, in seventh grade; then just a couple of strands that I would later dye blue. What followed was years of experimenting: I went through pretty much the entire color wheel and spectrum of hair lengths, styles, and textures. Though my mother never actively protested against the decisions I made, she didn’t attempt to hide her disapproval. I didn’t have a good response to fall back on. To be honest, I didn’t know why I was doing it either.
Now, if you ask me why I first dyed my hair, I could tell you that it was a way to express my marginalized sexuality before I could even admit it to myself. Or that I was trying really, really hard to be different from other girls my age. Or that changing my hair was the closest thing I could do to changing my body, which I hated. Maybe one of those is true, or maybe all of them are. Maybe it was simply because I wanted autonomy at the ripe age of eleven. Regardless, here are some highlights. (Get it? Like, hair highlights. I’m hilarious.)
Walking into Mr. Jensen’s homeroom in eighth grade, the entirety of my hair neon purple, wearing flared jeans, a yellow peace sign T-shirt, and a purple sweater over it. Head held high, I ignore the looks — well, more like bask in them. I am the first and only person in my grade to do anything of this caliber at a school that once gave me detention for wearing a baseball cap backward (another one of my slightly-weird-verging-on-problematic looks).
Freshman year, on my way home from the hair salon, meeting eyes with an ex-classmate (read: ex-bully). He looks at me from across the street and shouts: “What the FUCK did you do with your hair?” My hair is blue. I tell him to fuck off and leave, feeling like the most badass person I’ve ever met and like the scum of the earth, all at the same time. At school, my best friend and I are the only straight people in our lunch group. I read article after article on queer history, and tell my mom about them. Neither of us has a clue why I’m crying.
The same year, my hair is now hot pink, and I fantasize about riding a motorbike as a private investigator. My favorite accessory: a black knitted pussy hat, even though I didn’t go to the Women’s March (my mother was worried we would get deported). My best friend isn’t telling me who she has a crush on, and I tell my mother she is my favorite person in the world. A few days ago, I asked a girl in the locker room before gym class how she knew she was bi. She said something about asses.
It’s the day of sophomore registration, and my hair is brown again for the first time in over a year. That is because I cut most of it off. I spent most of the summer at a camp and realized some things. Now, my best friend and I are making up some of the lost time in Grant Park. I tell her I am bisexual. She asks me why I feel the need to tell her that. Suddenly, I feel small and insignificant. Days later, she tells me she has a crush on a girl in her advisory.
Winter of that year treats me terribly. I buzz off half of my hair and dye it red to feel something. It helps, sort of, and come March, I am the coolest person on the planet again, holding hands with a boy I don’t really like and taking guitar classes on seminar day. Every day, I am healing a little bit, and by the end of April, I’m ready to be alone. I come out to my family. I try to talk to my best friend again.
I’ve been growing my hair out ever since. Though I tried several more colors, changing it lost its allure, and by the second half of junior year, I began keeping it the same purplish-brown, now bought in the “adult” section of the hair dye department. Once it got to my shoulders, I made my mother cut it occasionally, but never too short. I took the scissors into my own hands once, a week after I began dating my ex-girlfriend last fall. I was depressed and didn’t know why. Later I learned that she was as well. The haircut was botched and uneven, so much so that I had to go to a salon to get it fixed. I thought the power of it would do something for me. It didn’t, really.
About a month ago, my girlfriend cut my hair, and then helped me dye it. We were already in quarantine — she was the only person outside of my household that I could see. I asked her out on the last day of school, and we’ve been spending days together, pretending that the universe isn’t falling apart around us. It feels selfish to admit how much I don’t mind this — you know, minus the existential dread and the looming uncertainty of college. Still, my head is finally clear, and art isn’t a chore anymore. It’s been months since I’ve felt the deep, familiar self-loathing, which has now been replaced with a content sort of happiness. But, I think, contentment isn’t what I’m looking for. I think I need to be hopeful, despite the world being what it is right now.
So, I decided to bleach my hair.
Eva is a high school senior, an INFP, a Slytherin, and, among other things, a poet. Growing up in Russia in a family of political dissidents, she struggled with her parents' and peers' expectations. Now, a refugee in Chicago, she has learned to let go (a little bit) and notice the beauty in the world. And write about it. She is passionate about the Beatnik movement, the 1920s, electoral politics, contemporary art, and people-watching. She also occasionally exists on Instagram at @evagelmann.
This article was edited by Executive Editor Sarah Diver