I believe in blonde.

I believe my blonde hair is a massive part of who I am. When I was born, I had bright, platinum blonde hair, which faded to normal blonde, and darker and darker until right now, when I’m stuck with this brown/blonde hair combo that feels very, very disgusting. I love being blonde, and I don’t want to be brunette. Blonde hair in my family is such a beautiful thing. Most of my siblings have distinct, blonde hair that you can see from miles away, and it’s kind of like the signature DeBacker-sibling trait. We’re all swimmers, we’re all athletic, and we look so alike because of our blonde hair.

And whenever people see our family together, they have this instant like “Oh, they look exactly like each other” moment. Or a “There go the DeBackers siblings” moment. I’ve always been a blonde person, in a blonde family. I’ve never thought anything other of it. I love my blonde hair. It’s never something I felt negative about. It’s been one of my constants in life, from the time I was born…until last week.

Last week, I compared my hair against Mabel’s. We were doing so in a joking way, until I realized that the undersides of my hair were turning light brown. We had the same color hair. It made me mad. It felt like I was losing my DeBacker-ness. One of my last constants was changing. It felt like a personal offense that I was turning brunette. That my hair had somehow wronged me. That it betrayed me.

I was so offended by this that the following weekend, I spent every hour I could trying to lighten the undersides. I took online quizzes to find different hair-lightening shampoos, put chamomile tea in my hair, and lemon juice in my hair…But not much was working. Looking at this from an outside perspective, it might seem like a very tiny, insignificant thing. So my hair’s changing color - what’s the big deal? It’s very natural for hair to turn colors during puberty. But it felt like I was losing a part of myself that I had never wanted to.