If there is one thing that movies have taught me over the years, then it is that every new aspect of your life is accompanied by a new haircut. Carrie Bradshaw moves on from getting dumped by Big in Sex and the City? She dyes her hair brown. Jennifer Lawrence’s character in Joy takes a stand for her own business? Hair gets cut. It is a law of nature. Or at least a law of motion pictures.

And like everyone is influenced by pop culture in one way or another, I am influenced by this universal principle. It thus happened a few days ago that I decided to have one of those life changing makeover moments myself. So I made an appointment with a hairdresser I never went to before. With the brilliant plan to communicate in a wild combination of Dutch and English thrown in-between when my vocabulary reached its limits. And the ultimate goal to walk out of the hairdresser with bangs and blond hair. What could possibly go wrong, right?

I have to admit that I questioned my own plan when I walked into the hairdresser’s shop and saw one women after another leave with a surprisingly similar and very short haircut that I definitely did not want. But because I was already there and in desperate need of a change, there was no going back. And after overcoming my initial anxiety, it turned out just fine. I got the bangs I wanted and a good tip on how to get back to my original blond hair colour without ruining my hair (cola, surprisingly). The team was nice, the language not a problem — the visit a complete success.

But walking out of the hairdresser’s shop, I realised that a change of hair really is just a change of hair. How easy would it be if we could just have a movie-inspired makeover moment, while Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark is playing in the background and suddenly, life is figured out? But when Bruce Springsteen sings ‘I want to change my clothes, my hair, my face’ what really needs to change in order to make a change is a person’s attitude. Being a badass doesn’t start with getting bangs or dying your hair brown, blond or blue. It starts with a bold choice. Not necessarily with the hair on your head, but most certainly with the thoughts circling your mind.

Every two weeks, Antonia will add the songs she writes about to the Spotify playlist below. This way, she creates a soundtrack to her time in Nijmegen. Click left and right for more songs.

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