Naomi
I asked my dad two questions in quick succession last week when we were watching the 10 o’clock news. “Has capitalism failed?” and “Do you think I’d look good blonde?” That pretty much sums up the opposing poles of my personality. But today I want to focus on just one of them. Let’s talk about my hair.
I’ve always thought that I’d go blonde at some point in my life. Do a lot of girls think that? I feel like it is a rite of passage of some sort, at least for pale white girls. At the same time I think I am very much a brunette at heart—in the past I’ve tinted it red and last winter I started dyeing it darker brown.
I don’t think I am a very “blonde” person—not vivacious, pretty-pretty, all the other stereotypes. I am not sure what gave me the urge to go blonde. I looked at my bedroom collage of my favourite people and none were blonde. Florence Welch made me want red hair two years ago, Audrey Horne had made me want to go darker after I spent the first half of the winter watching Twin Peaks. But there’s some hidden part of me that does feel blonde. Maybe, even though I’m always so busy hiding from the world, there’s a part of me that wants to show. I’m not sure, however, that just changing my hair colour will help.
That’s just one small part of the conversation that is all going on inside my head. I also feel like I’ll never have enough time (or energy) to express all these hugely different parts of me. Sometimes I feel like a completely different person from one week to the next, or even just from day to day. You know when you meet someone you haven’t seen in a while and your hair is greasy, you have no makeup, and you don’t feel your best? Sometimes it feels like that every day.
Do you spend your whole life as focused on who you are as when you’re a teenager? Will you one day be too busy changing nappies/washing dishes/buying cat food (if the cat-lady lifestyle is the one you choose) to give a damn about “discovering yourself”? Is it just hopelessly vapid, vain, and useless to spend so much time worrying about my hair, or my clothes? Or is that just part being a teenager and being a human being and having an identity?
Naomi’s identity issues: to be continued (possibly throughout my whole life). ♦
Love reading these journals!
Dylan – AHHH it’s so awkward when nuns ask you if you’re thinking of joining their order! IK from experience.
Naomi – I’ve always wondered if I should go blonde…I’ve lightened a streak of my hair in the front. I’ve also thought about going darker, but I’m never sure what will look good. I have the whole brunette/pale skin thing going.
Log in to replyI thought of art school for a long long time during high school, but I’m only going to a community college for now. My art & design class did give me a chance to make art and such, but pretty sure community college won’t give me the creative satisfaction either haha.
Blonde, never so much a thought for me because I’m tan with black hair, that’s just weird, but I’ve thought about going like red-brown, however, that’s a frightening thought. Mainly frightening since I’ve somehow managed to go through my teenage years without touching hair dye once (SINFUL, WASTED YOUTH).
And I totally code-named my crushes… and their friends haha. They ranged from “Furby” to “Casey” to “7-25″ XD It’s funny how the one boy I never code-named was the one who managed to stick around until now ;D (2 years and a month).
Log in to replyCute! I like your comment! I totally had/have (hahahaha being a silly teenager) code-names for the stud muffins of school. And the occasional goth kid who I am really attracted to for some reason… good article!
Log in to replyi like it that you talked about crush, Katherine. i am passive for kind like that. i am shy. and the most major fault is i am so realistic and perfectionist so i never really really fall in love. boy who like me always scare me. yeah, alone doesn’t mean pathetic. it just mean that i should know myself better.
Log in to replyi really want to dye my hair, but i already have blonde hair. maybe red or purple?
Log in to replyi dont really codename my crushes, but they are the only people i come up with nicknames for. so they already know their codenames.
which rather defeats the purpose of a codename.
Oh man, I totally did the code name too. For 5 years. 5 years! Over this one guy. You know what’s crazy though? I saw him, like 5 years later and my tummy still flipped. I guess there are a lot of memories attached to crushing.
And Naomi, I always said I needed 7 bodies to be all the different people I wanted to be. Mostly it was about tattoos though. Part of me wanted full sleeves and part of me (the real life me) decided against it.
Log in to replyKatherine–I FEEL YOU. My love life could be described as disastrous. I always make a fool out of myself in front of the guy i like. actually, I always make a fool out of myself in front of everyone. my first real crush was also in first grade. That was back in the days when for some reason i was actually popular and a ton of guys liked me. Yeah, that stopped at about that stage in my development. But the guy that I liked (he was Japanese!) never noticed me, even though we went to a show together once with our moms or something, I don’t really remember. I told my friend about my crush, and since she was such a good friend, she told him but made the cuckoo sign to “show she was just kidding.” of course, I probably ruined that perception by freaking out when I saw she was telling him. and that was just the prelude to my love life, which consists of me liking a boy and that boy either never ever knowing that I even go to his school/camp/whatever or finding out my feelings and being embarrassed and running away. Yup, that’s just me,
Log in to replyNaomi–I know what you mean. As a fellow brunette, I for one have always been offended by the saying “blondes have more fun.” Like, thanks. I’ve considered dying my hair a multitude of colors, including blonde, but in the end I think I’d be too much of a wimp to go for anything more extreme than temporary dye. Or a wig. I could really feel a wig like Tavi has, that long blue one.
Dylan–Took your advice, listened to the music. Um. You seem really cool and I like your posts, but your taste in music and my taste in music are perhaps not quite the same. Other than that, I too have known what I want to be when I’m older for quite a while, but luckily for me there are many venues available for me where I could pursue creative writing. (I don’t know if I’m using the word venues rite.) And I never went to religious school (I’m not even Catholic) but it sounds like a ton of fun (no it doesn’t). I’m happy for you that you are in a better school now! (Also, you should read Unfinished Desires by Gail Goodwin, if you’re a bookworm and/or into long books about life at a Catholic school which sounds really boring but is pretty amazing and one of my favorite books.)
lolineedtodomyhomeworknow
Every time I realize that I like a boy I get all awkward around them. Also I never tell anyone because in third grade this kid ran around the playground screaming about how I liked tis one boy, his code name with my best friend was m&ms …. her crush was 7up.
Log in to replyMy first crush actually did like me, but I didn’t find out until after he had moved to Colorado. (I live in MN) I was in second grade, and had liked him since first. My heart was very broken.
Log in to replyHaha, what is it with code names that are food? I had a crush that was Sprite, my friend had Coca Cola..
I totally identify, Naomi! Also with the hair dyeing part, but also the whole figuring out yourself thing. Sometimes it just feels like why do you have to put a label on yourself or anything, or say you’re this way or that, but I guess society makes it that way. It’s all very typical teenager, that everyone goes through, so don’t feel ashamed.
Log in to replyLove this post Dylan!
I have always been a big dreamer, some dreams i have achieved, some I still trying to achieve, and others are still somewhere out there waiting for the right time to come.
For a long time I dreamed about writing a novel. It’s quite amazing just how much it took for me to even start thinking of it as a potential reality.
Now I’ve been working on it/developing it for quite a while now, and the problem is, the more effort I try to put in the more it feels like work, and I actually end up making less progress.
Maybe my imagination just can’t be forced to cooperate when I want it to, or maybe I just forgot why I was writing the novel in the first place.
I think it’s important to bring ourselves back to basics, back to the point when we do what we are doing because we enjoy doing it, don’t just do it because we feel that we ‘have too.’
Log in to replyNaomi – something I have learned in the last few years – you can only ever truly be yourself. I used to want to change every little thing about me, I hated everything I saw in the mirror.
Log in to replyIt has taken a while to accept who I am and what I look like, or maybe I just don’t care anymore – who knows.
I don’t think it is something that can be forced, it is something that develops deep inside, and eventually spills out onto the surface.
Well I guess that’s my rather vague self-discovery lesson for the day ;)
Naomi’s ‘identity crisis’ IS MY LIFE!!
Log in to replyExactly, do we ever really “discover ourselves” or do we just get lost and caught up in routine?
If you dye it blonde (and have to bleach it to do so) If it doesn’t turn out alright then you can just dye it a different color : )
Log in to replyThat is so funny, I feel exactly the same way and also had the urge to go red after seeing Florence live and being inches away from the stage. I always go through these phases. The only thing the concerns me is the damage to my hair. At the same time, I feel like, who cares, I may not even live until I’m 80 to actually lose it all anyway.
The colour my hair is definitely reflects a bit of how I carry myself…
Log in to reply@Naomi’s, I’m a natural blond, and I honestly don’t see why people always want to go blond. If I ever dyed my hair it would probably be some shade of red, or some freaky color like bubblegum pink.
Log in to replyI’m seventeen and a brunette and just this summer I dyed my hair blonde with pink streaks. I was really worried that if I did it on my own it would look terrible and fry my hair, but I did it anyway. It’s kinda lame, but I don’t feel any different. I mean, I think it looks good, but it’s not like changing my hair defined me. I feel like pretty much the exact same person I was as a brunette.
Log in to replyAhhh! Thank you for this article. I was feeling pretty maddened by the first crush I had in ages, but this helped so much and made me feel better about things . : -)
Log in to replyFor a while i used the codename Buttface.
Log in to reply“For a while” as in last week.
Log in to replyI was just having these same angsty thoughts last night. I wrote in my journal how I felt everything I’m doing is such of waste of my precious youth. I feel like that as long as I’m doing something I enjoy that’s putting me closer to one of my real goals (not the generic “good college” “happy family” nice husband” goals) then I have less of a chance of falling into despair and a monotonous life of working for things that don’t matter. Oh, and did I mention I love rookie mag for providing me with chances to share how I feel with complete, like-minded strangers?
Log in to replyI think about this allll the time. This outlook is really good for keeping yourself in check about what you’re doing with your life and if you’re happy and stuff and making sure you’re pursuing your goals…but it’s also pretty easy to get judgmental of yourself (ie, “WHY DID I MAKE NO ART THIS SUMMER, I SUCK, I HAD 4 MONTHS AND ALL I DID WAS WATCH BRAVO TV UGHH” -Dylan Rupert, 2011)
The mandatory stuff is the most annoying to get through but once life direction becomes more of a choice its so awesome and freeing but at the same time I feel a lot more accountable for like, everything I do.
I love Rookie Mag for providing me with chances to share how I feel with complete, like-minded strangers, too.
Log in to replyI’ve the same problem both with art-like things and finding time to do maths.
Log in to replyThe problem is, I neither do maths nor art-like things… Too busy watching old Fantômette TV-series!
dylan you complete me! I started back at collage 2 weeks ago and what you’ve wrote about it basically all I have been thinking about. It’s made me calm down abit!
Log in to replyI’d love to be a carrot-top :)
Log in to reply@Dylan: God, your post is just what i am experiencing!
I go to an all-girl catholic school in Ireland and im a sophmore (4th Year). To get through every school day i just remind myself that i only have to be there for 2 more years, then i can do what i want…
I KNOW what i want to do when im older and that i want to go to art college, yet our guidance counsellor (What type of job is that?!!) keeps shoving ‘nursing’ and ‘teaching’ and ‘accounting’ leaflets at me as she sees it as a ‘more stable’ future…
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