"I'm growing out my bangs"

One aesthetic decision to cover up several unaesthetic anxieties

“I’m growing out my bangs.”

… is what I told my sister over the phone when she asked, “What’s new?” My days of unmanageable curls scratching my forehead are over. I’m embracing change. 

“I’m growing out my bangs,” is what I always say to this question. Siblings, parents, co-workers, friends I don’t see often—it doesn’t matter. It’s a status update that always satisfies the other party’s need for surface-level banter. 

“What’s new?”

“I’m growing out my bangs.”

“Oh exciting! I’ve never seen you without bangs.”

Dialogue isn’t my strong suit, but you get it. 

For me, it’s less a conversation starter than it is a cheeky diversion away from what I don’t want to answer.

I’ve always felt particularly averse to the question, “What’s new?” It triggers a pavlovian pulse of anxiety as my brain decodes what they’re really asking.

“What have you accomplished between now and the last time we were together?”

At its best, it’s a well-intentioned attempt to make my personal progress time-bound. I can sense their eagerness to chat about career updates, upcoming travel plans, or my last Hinge date (if we’re sticking to the script of life updates in your mid-twenties). And it’s frustrating, because in that space between their question and my answer, I realize I have no lines. No accomplishment ever comes to mind. That lack of productivity is my biggest insecurity. 

So instead, I default. “I’m growing out my bangs.”

What actually is new is of far less visual interest. If I were to answer honestly, I’d have to say things like …

“I didn’t get that promotion I was promised.”

“I got dumped by my situationship who made me anxious the whole time anyway.”

“Still living with roommates in the same apartment I've been in since twenty-three.”

I’m twenty-six. While melodrama is a core pillar of my personality, I do think it’s essential I break for a reality check. To some, I really do live a dream life. This is my dream life. I made it to New York; I write for a living; I have friends that make me a better person; my parents love me. I recognize few twenty-six-year-olds feel they have it together.

But there’s something about being in your twenties and realizing that the definition of success has suddenly changed. It’s no longer based on academic achievement. Success is now being defined by the vision you have for yourself and how close you are to becoming that. In your twenties, you’re discovering that the weight of success is especially heavy, because the only one carrying it is you. “What have you been up to lately?”

I resent that I live in a world where growing up is quantified by achievements. Getting a promotion yields financial freedom. Entering a relationship signals emotional maturity. Moving apartments symbolizes the passage of time. 

The passage of time is inherently tied to growing up, but it’s growing up that I struggle to unravel from the productivity the passage of time implies.

So I respond, “I’m growing out my bangs,” to keep the honesty away. 

---

I use Instagram for two reasons. 1) To stay on the pulse of pop culture 2) To know what people from high school are up to now. 

It’s a sacred experience to scroll through your feed and find out that a girl you don’t talk to anymore is already on her second kid. A friend from French class is graduating law school. Someone moved to Paris. Two classmates just got engaged! These are the kinds of visually interesting updates people want to know about. 

It’s almost scientific the way I measure myself up against my old classmates. We have all the same independent variables like high school, hometown, and time between graduation to now. I pin “what’s new” with them against “what’s new” with me and use this as a basis for deciding how I feel about my life. 

Can you blame me for this individualist way of thinking? 

When we first go to college, we compete with our classmates for scholarships. When we graduate, the competition shifts to the job market. When we move, we’re going head-to-head for housing. In New York, it’s an especially nasty bloodbath. 

It all comes down to who has the best grades, resume, recommendations, professional connections, salary, credit score, for the things we’re told make a successful life. It’s survival of the fittest, and the best man always wins. 

If this is what success looks like, then we have to be productive. We have to be careful with how we invest our time. 

Invest. Even the way we talk about time feels capitalistic. With phrases constantly floating by me like “free time,” “time well spent,” “time is money,” etc., it's no wonder time and I have developed such an unhealthy relationship. 

I recently finished a podcast from The Atlantic, “How to Keep Time.” It covers relationships with time through a more sociological, psychological lens. In episode two, the hosts describe a study pitting both Americans and Italians against each other to answer what deems a person high-value:

“… And what we found was that in the U.S. a very busy person was seen to have more social status than a less busy person. But in Italy it was the exact opposite. So there is the person who had more time for leisure was seen as having more social status than the person who had to work.”

A high-value person in the U.S. is essentially just hard to book. Whether it’s due to back-to-back meetings that secure them a higher salary or back-to-back events that raise their social capital, you’re going to struggle to get face time. A high-value person isn’t doling out their time generously to others. 

The idea of time as an economic asset that’s already scarce is the American doctrine that raised me. I’ve fallen for the belief that busyness defines my worth because busyness is a byproduct of time well spent. 

So you can understand that when someone asks me to tell them “what’s new,” I panic. 

I want to take this as a sign to quit everything and move to Italy. Unfortunately, I have a rational part of my brain telling me the solution I’m looking for won’t be found through a change of zip code. I’ll have to change my mindset. 

I’m now asking you to hold me accountable as I work toward this new mindset: The Italian mindset. It’s a way of being that isn’t concerned with tangible accomplishments like a new job, entertaining dating life, or bigger apartment. Instead, I’m recognizing my time hasn’t been spent incorrectly, but rather generously. 

---

Two weekends ago, after my aforementioned situationship quite bluntly let me know he doesn’t want to see me anymore, the first thing I did was head straight to my friend’s apartment to cry. I crashed her afternoon to shed tears over Chick-fil-a, while I confessed feelings of loneliness and phobias of being left behind. Then I took the train back to my apartment, where my roommate met me with flowers and let me cry next to her for another twenty minutes. After texting my various group chats the news, I was flooded with “I’m sorry’s” and “I love you’s.” I still went to a Valentine’s party that night, found my way to my favorite bar, and didn’t come home until 3 a.m. 

When my job passed me over for a raise I was starting to expect, I felt my friends’ anger right beside mine as soon as I told them. And that lease I’m resigning—it’s for an apartment full of three years’ worth of memories with roommates I’m worried I can’t live without. 

There was a time in my life where this level of vulnerability and reliance on community wouldn’t have been possible. I moved to New York three years ago without knowing anyone. I built my social circles from scratch. 

It took intentional investment of my time to progress my relationships to this point. I prioritized the coffee dates, the happy hours, the nights out, and the mornings after watching movies hungover in my living room, so I could have friends for the moments that feel like setbacks. 

As I put my new mindset into practice, it’s comforting to zoom out from the picture these setbacks hold so close to my face. From 0.5, they’re a display of community that adds incredible value to my life. 

I wish these moments could easily be added to the mid-twenty-year-old’s unwritten script of answers to “What’s new?”

But for now, I’ll settle on “I’m growing out my bangs,” as a visual representation of the growth I experience every day.

Thanks for listening,
Margot