It’s dark and long. I rush to my mother to tell her that I want it to be short just like hers. She refuses by gesturing her hands for me to walk away.

“You’re still young! Leave your hair to grow and cut it when you grow up.”

As we all know, listening to your mother is the only choice you can make if you don’t want the utter curse of “I should have listened to my mother because now I made one huge mistake.” Then again, the rebellious corner in your mind shouts for you to go do what you want, so as an eight years old, I hid in the bathroom with a scissor to cut some parts of my hair. Eventually, the inevitable happened, and my mother sees hair in the trash of the bathroom and knows that it’s me. Lesson learned from this incident? I have to work on my spying skills, and mothers know best, but you still have to do what you have to do.

I grew up, and my hair grew as well, but now I actually like it long. It’s a bit damaged and all, but it’s fine. Then, after long when I finally got over this phase, I decided to dye it blue. It’s unexpected and well, doesn’t fit my dark hair, but I wanted to do that. I went to the salon, and after five hours of trying to bleach my dark hair, and get the blue to stick on it, it worked. Now, I have blue hair that flows around with me everywhere. Then after five months, when the phase passes, and I cut my hair super short, just like my mother, I am finally with my long-wanted short hair.

But see, the problem is that, I wear a headscarf. When I had my long hair, and I dyed it blue, people would mostly just see the blue. When I cut my hair short, after I had half of it blue, most people wouldn’t notice, and they would only know me with my short hair.

All these changes that went through my hair were not seen by others because every time that some change occurred it was hidden under a scarf, and if anyone sees me they would only see the certain phase but not the transition. It’s weird because you’d think that change is very obvious and that people see what is happening in your own life. The truth is, though, that it’s not that noticeable to almost everyone. It’s a very subtle realization, but I can see that change happens within. Even though I might happen to wear something on my head to cover my hair, and others don’t, that doesn’t change the fact that change really happens.