Blonde Blindness

On March 14th, many years ago, I was cut out of my mother’s womb weeks early. She must come out, the doctors said. It was necessary. I was already ten pounds. I like to think I was in there knocking, knowing my time was now. Put me in coach. A little human ready to do what humans do best: assign all sorts of meaning to this meaningless existence.

The first meaning I’d assign: the day itself. 3/14, the day of the infinite. 3.14159… It goes on forever. That makes me excited about the idea of destiny. Why not let my life feel like I am here for a greater purpose?

Given its relation to Pi, I always blew out my birthday candles on a pie instead of a cake. I am so different. The thing we all jokingly love to say. Ironically, we mean it, because it’s one of the feelings we deeply crave. After all, life is simply the infinite coming to Earth to experience a defined state. A distinct sense of self.

I entered the world looking extraterrestrial, covered in wax with a head full of black hair. My mom was baffled. There were concerns I wasn’t done incubating, but I was. What would it have meant if I’d been born on April Fools’ Day? No one takes the jokester seriously. March 14th was the better choice for me. That made me a Pisces, and I spent many chapters living religiously by what astrologists said that meant. A Pisces is all of the signs combined, represented by two fish swimming circles around each other. Of course… that feels so infinite… Boundless imagination, spirituality, and empathy so intense that life is but a constant tug on my heartstrings, for both the good and the bad. A water sign, very go-with-the-flow. Which also means swayable to the currents. Head in the clouds, feet never touching the ground. Selfless in how much we intuitively wish to care for the world, but quick to want to escape it. I lived much of my life identifying with this because I was born March, 14th, which made me a Pisces, so of course that was me.

Being that perceptive, why not assign a deep meaning to the specific date of the 14th? The arrival meant I shared birthday with people I admire, one being the man that is Albert Einstein. An intellectual who carried the weight of the universe’s unknowns with such lightness and humor while still taking his work seriously. It’s a way of life I strive to live by.

A few days into said living, my black hair shed. In its place, pure white. My dad is Swedish, so blonde made sense. What didn’t make sense to others was my eye shape: dark and almond, as if they were seeing you instead of you seeing them. Endless pits. It raised questions about my mom’s fidelity. Think again, she’s an honorable woman. Those assuming failed to recognize the part of Sweden my genes came from: the Sámi, above the Arctic Circle. My dad’s mom spent a lot of time adjusting her eyes to the endless sun or total lack of it, depending on the time of year. I like to think she lived in the most beautiful igloo. I can only imagine. It was a biological adaptation, and I’m so thankful. It gave me my sight, the way I see the world. I consider it one of my superpowers. I choose to see the glass completely full, even when it looks empty.

As such, I’ve seen the world pretty consistently: it’s a good and loving place. It may sound naive, but I stay rooted in that choice because I believe it’s part of my social responsibility while I’m here. I don’t understand how we’ll ever live in a better world if we don’t choose to see it as that already. But being critical of myself came easily. I spent much of my attention staying at the surface level of self, in so many forms.

My white hair turned a darker blonde. I am Swedish, the blonde friend. Always happy, smiling, ready to say yes. You could always count on me brightening your day. Being that ray of sunshine was part of who I am, and with it came the other expectations of being blonde. Unconsciously, of course. It’s not that I didn’t want to dive into knowledge or a greater purpose. I just focused on what blondes were meant to do: have fun. Pair that with a Pisces, and I was living in LaLaLand.

As most childhood blondes know, there comes a time when you must start dyeing it to keep the shade you had as a kid. It gets tiring and expensive, and as the former blonde friend, I don’t believe we get enough credit for the effort. I salute those who keep marching on. Especially the ones who sit in the chair for hours getting highlights, debating with their stylist. I feel like we could go even blonder.

The right stylist will tell you no. Mine refused to take me platinum. As someone who was getting tired of all the blonde tropes I was living by, I wanted to explore a new version of myself. Of course this meant taking a paintbrush and new color to my head. I did what they tell you not to do: doctor-shopped until I found someone who would take my perfectly healthy hair to the whitest shade possible. I needed to see myself beyond the blonde friend, but I certainly wasn’t going to lose the identity of being blonde. How could I consider brunette when blonde was such a big part of me? It felt scary, and I was gripping on so tightly. So platinum it was.

Who was she now? Able to pick up the dice and roll them, no matter if all three landed on six. Your devil numbers mean nothing to me. This hair was an expression of swimming upstream. I do what others don’t. Spinning the dial of I Need To Feel Different all the way to the right. I laugh, because my style never really changed. I looked like a Targaryen stuck on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. Anything too edgy wasn’t me. Mixing the two looked unnatural to my eye. Beautiful, but not harmonious. I was definitely going through something. None of it made sense, because I couldn’t land on a sense of self. I didn’t know how I wanted to see myself and define what it meant to be me. I was lost, but I give myself grace. That’s what your 20s are for, they say. Maybe that was the point, because now I have an incredibly strong sense of self. And as a result, I don’t care to make sense anymore. It only needs to make sense to me.

After enough half day trips to the salon every month, taking money out of my pocket to instantly set it on fire, I decided it was time to go back to dirty blonde. I gave my stylist the brief: whatever you do, do not make me brunette. Not that I had anything against brunettes, but I was the blonde friend. I thought I’d be lost without that identity, which was scary given how lost I already felt. What the hell am I going to do with my life? Who am I? What does it all mean?

I closed my eyes, and not long after, I opened them to a brunette version of me. I’d never seen myself that way. I’d never even imagined the possibility of her. My stylist had gone against my only wish. And of course, the blonde in me was a people pleaser. All I said on my way out of the salon was, “I love it.” Then I was off, walking home in tears, dodging every reflective surface.

I FaceTimed my friends, eyes swelling. “You look amazing! It’s so natural.” I couldn’t see it yet. I still had to define who this new version of me was. That’s the thing about words: we tie concepts to them. To me, brunette was too severe. No-nonsense. Don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours. That was the story in my head, and I was never that. I was young and blonde and wanted to explore the world. What even is wasting time if I live by the principle that I can learn something from everyone. I can give everything a great meaning. Brunette just didn’t feel like that to me. It felt colder. I’m such a warm, outgoing person. Wouldn’t this new shade go against that? I smiled too much and was too earnest. The one who cried at commercials.

But now I had no choice, so how will I choose to see myself? She was way more clipped. The one with lucid boundaries now had walls of steel up. Willing to swim circles around you. Still leading with kindness, but my attention was entirely inward. And that was great, but there is such a thing as overindexing. I missed my blonde traits. Weren’t my 20s supposed to be for having fun? Aren’t we all going to live longer anyway? Go explore, Annika, and certainly give in to the men telling you to go blonde again.

A few months into this version of brunette, I went to get a haircut with no direction. I wanted a fresh canvas, free of the platinum scar tissue. It was the first and last time I will ever do that, as I left with a wolf cut. You can look it up and make your judgment. I am rendered speechless trying to describe it to you right now. I can’t help but laugh and shake my head. Perfect on some people, but not meant for me. We all have a natural essence that draws us to our specific taste. Mine is simple: clean lines, minimal fuss. This wasn’t that. Great, now even more of a crazy change. Who am I? Brunette with this cut was too much change, too soon. I needed a pacifier, which meant going blonde again. Back in the chair, a lighter held up to my wallet. Lay it on me. And it was a great band-aid. I was happy as the blonde again. But there was still mental damage from my wolf cut. I had to switch gears to curtain bangs, which was better, but I still didn’t really feel settled in myself. I kept heading back to the chair to make my hair blonder and shorter. Begging to be taken back to my roots. Make it simple for me again. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

I needed help. Two important life events had me questioning which colors would be most flattering on me. I’d never believed in the color analysis videos my algorithm kept serving me. Obviously I was the blonde friend, and I thought I was cool-toned: silver jewelry, water-inspired colors. Reflective scales like every good fish has.

So off I went to Koreatown in NYC and sought a color analysis, done by the pros at Seklab. I sat down and they immediately went to work with all sorts of tools: machines held to my face to read my natural skin tones, swatches to see which version of each color brought out my natural features. Deep Autumn, I was crowned. A jaw-dropping realization. There’s a smoldering darkness to Deep Autumn. It was the last palette I thought I’d be, given my fairly pale complexion. And it was so not the Blonde Pisces box I had put myself into. Deep Autumn was fire, gold and moody colors, opposite to the water I’d been swimming in.

They said my champagne hair wasn’t doing me any favors and to dye it black, or if not that, the deepest brown possible. That scared me. Uncharted territory, since my previous brunette was lighter than that. But hearing the words almost black? Unknowingly taking me back to my roots as a newborn, it seemed. I trust-fell into their guidance. It felt worth the risk: they told me my most flattering color was oxblood without me ever mentioning that same color is woven into the very fabric of my being. I am devoted to it; it seems to follow me, and I follow it. Their prescription felt like it might cure me of this constant desire to change my hair. Just help me be sure of who I am, I beg of you.

I went home and booked a color appointment without telling my friends. They’d heard me complain over and over about wanting to be blonde again, so I had to go in alone. After some back and forth, my stylist and I landed on a balance between the shade I had, a bright butter blonde, and the one Seklab suggested. All it took was a gloss. I was in and out within an hour. Is this how good other people have it? I was very satisfied. The color was close to my natural shade as an adult. A light brunette.

Looking back, the blonde was still there. I was merely feeling whether the water was warm. I’d gone beyond dipping a toe in, but I needed to dunk my whole head to test Seklab’s recommendation to its fullest potential. Put your hand in the box and see if you can take it, Annika. Timing coincided perfectly with my friends telling me to go champagne blonde out of the blue. When I’m told to zig, something in me wants to zag. It’s the pie-over-cake principle.

A few weeks ago, I went into the salon told them to take me even deeper. Paint me the color Seklab told me would be my best fit. Espresso brown. “Are you sure you want to do this?” my stylist asked. Entirely. I was sure of the person I wanted to be, and of the definitions I wanted to label myself as. I had walked through the fire many a time with my hair, and it always grew back healthier and stronger, platinum aside. We could do anything together. So the paint was applied.

There I was, staring back at myself in the mirror with near-black hair. I was shocked as they dried it. It was soooo dark. But I was so excited. A permission slip with my very own signature. Finally allowing myself to step into the version of me I define as a dark brown brunette Annika. Single-minded. A woman who knows her way. You can have your own opinion, but I know what I believe is right and wrong, and I will speak it, because brunette me never gets uncomfortable, no matter how long a silence plays. I enjoy silence now and am more than happy to let my eyes do the talking. Life exists so deeply behind them. I trust that the well in which I draw from never ends. The Day of the Infinite, remember? Of course, I still love to exercise my mind through great conversation. I’ll never shut up - my curiosity won’t let me. But I will never waste my words.

It took trying on so many versions of myself to find the one I enjoy being, and there was a learning curve. It was easy to lean too far into her. People would ask “if it ever smiles.” Not knowing that I was once blonde. I smirk; smiling is one of my best practices. It’s genuine. I trust March 14th was a very sunny day that year.

The last two pictures are taken exactly a year apart, and that makes me smile. I wholeheartedly feel the best I ever have, and I wish it for everyone. I live every day entirely by my own rules, and proudly within those of the world. It’s as though I’ve returned home to the one who came out of the womb, without all the definitions I picked up along the way that didn’t fit who I wanted to be.

A classic victim of Blonde Blindness. But the life of a victim is not an enjoyable one. With my superpower, I had the choice to see otherwise. This was a lifelong journey, but what you see here is an expression across a little over two years of time. Now that I’ve removed the log from my own eye, I find joy in helping people who aren’t seeing themselves clearly. I don’t say what I say to have my words land empty. I am brunette. So when I tell you something is the best in my eyes, I mean it. I feel no need to people please simply because I am so pleased with myself. Not from self-righteousness, but from understanding there’s nothing for me to get. Only here to be. My anchors are dropped, and I let the waves of life pass by.

I’d rather have far fewer things that mean everything to me than so many that I can’t give each one the care it deserves. I’m a fish. I crave the experience of swimming deeper and deeper within myself instead of being stuck at surface level. Haven’t you seen us out of water? I’m lucky to have found people who swim that deep with me, so I’m never swallowed by the darkness alone. I let myself keep everything I loved about being a Blonde Pisces and got rid of everything that didn’t fit. My head is still in the clouds, but my feet are very much on the ground.

I’ve reached a point of self-assured vanity where my own attention is more than enough. My blonde self was more critical of my appearance, brunette me is incredibly settled. Maybe because it’s just less upkeep. I get to spend it on things that give me purpose. Blonde me got her nails done in oxblood every two weeks. Brunette me would rather her hands be writing, painting, or cooking. Not that there’s anything wrong with having your nails done; I just don’t need something outside of me to feel feminine or beautiful. I still take care of myself intensely, but it comes from a completely different state: total appreciation for what I observe in the mirror. My eyes see both myself and the world in technicolor now. A rainbow fish, swimming in harmony with the version of me who first arrived on the scene, before any labels.

Life is black and white: you either are someone or you’re not. And you get to decide who that is in every moment. We spend far too much time in the gray area, not making a decision on who we are. I used to see my life in that gray area, assigning such confusing meanings to things. Not telling a clear story of who I am to myself. I let things outside of me narrate what was true. I would tell myself, well, if I’m going to express my essence of simplicity, I should only be wearing neutral colors, keeping it to whites and blacks. My color analysis helped me see through that. Now I wear every color across ROYGBIV, each in the shade most flattering to me. I can express that simplicity in other ways. There’s no gray area for me anymore.

I thank the versions of me that couldn’t see clearly. All equally the same, but I enjoy the expression of this one best. Blonde blindness is real, and I encourage you to examine why you may be spending your precious currency of time and money in the chair. That said, blonde could be your best color, and in a world of too much similarity, we need those willing to sit in the chair. You will always have my regard.

Just stay at ease for me, soldier.