When I was younger, I longed to have that straight, silky smooth, manageable hair that some possess. I thought my hair was ugly and made me stand out in a way that was wrong and different and unbeautiful. At any chance I got, I’d beg for my friends to pull out their 300-degree irons and rid me of the curls for just a day. I saw my messy, frizzy mane as unappealing, stressful, and annoying.

With hair like mine, the go-to look is the messy bun. A little slack in the back, tendrils coming down, and a million hair ties to keep the curls from popping out the top.

I’ve learned to embrace the crazy hair, and in the process, I realized that the messy bun represents a lot about who I am.

Impulsive, spontaneous, adventurous, all over the place, confused. Life is more fun when things don’t always go as planned.

Even if my day starts out with a tame head of hair, I know by the end it’ll be carelessly tossed up. Which, if you think about it, definitely means that I’m living life how it should be lived, right? I mean, what kind of a day is it when your hair and makeup stay perfect all day? Not a fun one in my eyes. I sweat at dance class, I sweat walking to class, I laugh so hard I cry and my mascara smudges, I run through the sprinklers on the quad like I’m 10 years old. I have dance parties in the basement of my hall and pajama Netflix marathons on the floors of dorm rooms.

Perfection is not something anyone should strive for. Whether that be in regards to appearance or school or work or relationships. Perfection doesn’t exist, and trying to get there will always leave me unsatisfied, unfulfilled, empty even.

There is no such thing as a "perfect" messy bun, just like there’s no such thing as a perfect life.

I believe in aiming for vitality, exuberance, zip, and zest. And the only way my corkscrewed crown can persevere through that is with-- you guessed it-- my messy bun. I accept life’s mistakes and “oh craps,” its inadequacies and blemishes. I accept the frizz and the tangles and the snarls. Now I’m not saying that life always has to be extravagant and grand and ground-breaking. Just like a messy bun isn’t a crazy in your face look, being adventurous and enthusiastic doesn’t always mean insane stories and sleepless nights. It can mean trying a new restaurant and loving it, finding a cozy spot to melt away in a book, emotion-filled conversations with new friends, or a goodnight text from your mom.

I just know that when I look back at my life, I want to see that I lived it with so much zeal and passion that the ephemeral, beautiful moments outweighed the bad, and that the mistakes I made led to amazing experiences and taught me things I would never have known had I not screwed up. So thanks to whoever or whatever gave me this hair… It’s influenced me and shaped me to believe in accepting imperfections instead of fighting them. I believe that messy buns aren’t just a hairstyle, but a lifestyle.