4 — The Statement // Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Snip, snip, snip.
I’ve always hated the sound
of scissors snipping. The metallic
snip, snip, snip reminds me of im-
minent change, and it terrifies me.
Ironically, though, as I sat on
a spinning beauty salon chair last
June and longingly stared back at
my reflection, the sound of scissors
snipping through my long, brown
hair thrilled me. The thick brown
locks that defined my identity for
the past two years were about to
be chopped off. In a matter of min-
utes, with the snip of a slim pair of
scissors, I would be an entirely new
person. And I was so excited.
I observed as locks of long,
brown hair fell fearlessly from my
head to the floor, signaling at the new
self I was about to become. But when
the hairdresser removed the large,
black, bib-like cloth from around
my neck, announcing that she had
finished, I became paralyzed, unable
to elicit any reaction except for a shy,
nearly inaudible, gasp.
I hated the haircut. I’d been so
sure that this was just the change I
needed right before I left for col-
lege, one that would render me
an entirely different person. I had
thought it would make me look ma-
ture and beautiful. How had it man-
aged to do exactly the opposite?
I lied straight through my
teeth. I told the hairdresser I loved
the cut and thanked her for a job
well done. But as soon as I flipped
my car on, ready to drive home, I
burst into tears. I kept pulling at
the edges of my hair, as if tugging
at them would make my long-gone
brown locks grow back. The first
thing I did when I got home was
tell my mom how much I hated my
hair. I incessantly repeated just
how much I despised it. She, on the
other hand, thought I looked lovely
— like an adult. She insisted that I
looked different, but in a good way.
Unfortunately, her motherly insis-
tence that it was exactly the change
I needed did little to change my
mind.
For the first time in months, I
felt ugly. I had attached the percep-
tion of my own beauty to my long
brown hair — convincing myself
that without it, I was unattractive.
Without it, I wasn’t pretty.
Snip, snip, snip.
The summer before my first
year of college consisted of one
too many orientation sessions and
an endless process of packing up
my entire life into two large suit-
cases. It was already a very stressful
time, so blaming everything that
went wrong on a collection of dead
cells on my head that were acciden-
tally cut too short didn’t do me any
good. But I was in a vicious cycle of
anxious self-loathing, and I saw no
way out.
I wasn’t able to enroll in one
of the classes I most wanted to
take, and instead of attributing the
event to the fact that I was simply a
freshman looking at class options
months after every other student
at the University of Michigan had
already done so, I blamed it on
my short hair. I lost my favorite
pair of leggings the week before
leaving for college, and although
I eventually found them, I blamed
their loss on my ugly, chopped
hair. My long-haired self would’ve
been able to enroll in that class I
so coveted. My long-haired self
would never have lost my favorite
pair of leggings. In this twisted re-
ality, she was perfect — and I was
the mess she left behind.
As I autopiloted my way
through my last summer at home
in Puerto Rico, I became my own
villain, blaming every little thing
that happened to me on an arbitrary
belief that the strands of hair on my
head were responsible for every un-
precedented mishap in my life. But
what I didn’t understand was that
under that layer of short hair, the
same being still lived on, and while
she was connected to that long-
haired girl from the past, she wasn’t
attached to her. She just wasn’t al-
lowing herself to grow.
Snip, snip, snip.
As late August neared, my
days and nights filled with teary-
eyed goodbyes to friends and fam-
ily, and draining last-minute ar-
rangements before putting the lock
on the luggage that secured the past
18 years of my life in their entirety.
Change loomed inevitably over me,
and although I initially thought that
chopping off an entire head of hair
would help with this dreadful tran-
sition, it only made it worse.
In my mind, long-haired me
would’ve been able to valiantly bid
her friends adieu without bursting
into tears and feeling like her life
was ending. She would’ve empa-
thetically smiled and said, “See
you in a few months! This isn’t a
goodbye, but a see you later,” but
the actual moment was too emo-
tional not to cause me to come
undone in my friends’ arms as we
hugged goodbye.
Trekking the 2,111 miles
from home with my parents by my
side, I believed my long-haired
self would’ve felt prepared for
what was to come and excited for
her new life in college. I, in com-
parison, felt a permanent pit in
my stomach that deepened by the
minute. What if my short-haired
self was too insecure, too boring
or too awkward to make friends?
What if she wasn’t smart enough
to excel in her classes like she had
in high school? What if everything
she did went wrong?
Snip, snip, snip.
My first week of college
consisted of awkward and repeti-
tive icebreakers that led me into
further self-deprecation. When
I opened my mouth to introduce
myself, I would have to clear my
throat every single time I spoke a
single word because the voice that
kept creeping out of my throat
wasn’t mine. I knew it wasn’t my
long-haired self’s voice, at least.
My long-haired self had been
secure in the track she came to
college to pursue. With an intend-
ed double major in english and
political science, she felt like she
would garner just the necessary
skills to thrive at the University,
and go on to apply to law school
after four years of undergraduate
education. Now, my short hair
and I were lost. With so many
programs and majors to choose
from, I didn’t know exactly what
I was searching for anymore.
GRACIELA BATLLE CESTERO
Statement Contributor
Design by Hailey Kim
Embracing the sound of change
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