The Summer I Glowed Up (Sort Of)

My hair was a casualty. That's the only way to describe what happened the summer before sophomore year, when I decided I was finally going to be someone new. Someone confident. Someone who didn't sit alone at lunch scrolling through TikTok while pretending to be extremely busy.

The transformation plan was simple: bleach my signature mousy brown, learn to do makeup from YouTube tutorials, and become That Girl who effortlessly has her life together. Spoiler alert: I was about as effortless as a baby giraffe on ice.

"You're doing what?" Maya stared at me like I'd announced I was joining a cult. "Your hair is gonna fry, bestie."

"It's called glow up energy," I said, though my hands were literally shaking as I held up the box of bleach. "Trust the process."

The first sign this was going to be a disaster should've been my cat, Mochi, who decided the bathroom counter was her new throne. Every time I tried to section my hair, she'd bat at the comb like it was a personal attack. Eventually I locked her out, which she let everyone know was unacceptable by yowling outside the door like a wounded siren.

Three hours later, my hair was somehow both brassy and fried at the same time. I looked like ahighlighter that had seen some things. That's when I discovered the wifi wasn't working.

No wifi meant no tutorials. No tutorials meant I had absolutely no idea how to fix this monstrosity on my head. I traced the cable from the router, realizing Mochi had chewed through it at some point during her protest.

I ended up at my neighbor's house at 11 PM, hair looking like a failed science experiment, begging to use their wifi. Lucas opened the door, took one look at me, and didn't even ask questions. Just handed me his phone and made me water while we watched fix-it videos.

"You know," he said, after I'd successfully toned my hair to something that could charitably be called "honey blonde," "you didn't need to change anything."

"Easy for you to say," I muttered. "You're not the one who's been invisible since middle school."

"I noticed you," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I didn't become That Girl. I still spill things, I still trip over my own feet, and my hair decisions remain questionable. But sophomore year, I didn't sit alone at lunch. And sometimes, when Mochi decides to yeet herself off the couch in a dramatic display of cat theatrics, Lucas and I lock eyes across the room and smile.

Maybe glow ups aren't about becoming someone new. Maybe they're about becoming okay with who you've been all along.