[ all elena has been doing is changing - it's frightening and terrible and unavoidable. this, at least, she can control. she's a different person than she was when she got here. she's spent so much time and fight on keeping her choices, her identity, at home and in here; maybe this is just another way to reclaim both. from keeping her hair straight to differentiate from katherine's (differentiate herself from katherine) to helping kill or condoning the same of so many people for the safety of her loved ones, all she's done is struggle to reclaim both.
so she gets it. small and trivial things matter, almost as much as the bigger picture. ]