Where are all my curly-haired girls at?! Well not necessarily THAT curly...more so wavy... with some random straight sections sprinkled in trained by countless years of blow drying and ironing.

There's definitely some frizz mixed in, and I'm starting to think that hairspray is a myth. Trust me, I've tried it all; the taming products, sleeping in braids, and my mom making me use a silk pillowcase when I was younger.

Both my parents were born curly-haired creatures such as myself but you wouldn’t know it; my mom rarely ever wears her hair down and my dad basically has a buzzcut. This leaves me to fend for myself when it comes to how I style and attempt to tame my hair. It's not curly enough for the leave-in conditioner, but not straight enough for it to dry normally on its own.

I'm in the Goldilocks dilemma of being somewhere terrible between the two.

I’m not going to lie, I sometimes keep mental notes on how other girls in my classes style their hair, thinking that if I try it then I can finally find a style I like.

Since I've been trying to limit the amount of heat on my hair, there are currently four ways that I typically style it sans-heating tools: half-up-half-down, hat, headband, and french braids. If I'm really feeling fancy, I'll blow dry the front and let the rest do what it wants to do.

My determination to avoid killing my hair with heat is fueled by the far-fetched hope that my hair will actually grow at a speed other than glacial.

Since I despise most things about my natural hair, I have been dying it since I was a tween, which is another reason why my hair refuses to grow. I've bleached it, soaked it in Sun-In, and have gone through an embarrassing amount of lemons in the summer to achieve the "natural highlight" (which let me tell you has yet to work).

When seasons start to change and it gets a little colder outside, that's when I start to get antsy for a color change. Last year I dyed my hair so dark, that some of my teachers didn't recognize me at my high school.

I was referred to as a "chameleon". I thought the nickname was funny because it was true, I was always changing my color, and was something that I enjoyed doing and continue enjoying it.

So is my frequent color change worth the lack of length variety? Possibly, it totally depends on if my mom does a good job dying it when I get home for Thanksgiving or if my friend Callie cuts off all my split ends when she gives me a trim.

I honestly think some people are blessed with naturally good hair (yes Julia, I'm calling you out right now). However, for the others like myself, I find myself making-do of the situation and taking the opportunity to use my hair to experiment.

I’ve learned not to care too much.

My thought process is that ‘if my hair is shitty already, does it matter if I box-dye it? Or if I let my friends give me haircuts? It'll grow back eventually!’ (emphasis on eventually). I feel like I'm surrounded by girls with great hair, and when I compliment them on it they genuinely seem like they have never noticed (grr).

But those girls can’t braid for their lives or own a hat collection or ever switch it up. Maybe it was a blessing that I was born with stubborn hair- it's allowed me to go outside the box and experiment.

How you style hair says so much about how you choose to express yourself, that's why it's still my vendetta to find the perfect style that satisfies me. Who knows if that day will ever come, but until then, catch me in half-up-half-down, headbands, hats, and braids.