This week, I made the decision to chop my hair. I say chop because I previously had wavy, ombre-ed locks down to my lower back. But since late on Monday morning, the ends of my hair are skimming my shoulders. It may seem vain to some that I decided to write about this topic for my weekly Odyssey article, but this isn’t about how much I love my new haircut or the haircut remorse that often comes when the long tassels are gone. This article is about far much more than that.

I loved my hair. It was so long and feminine and pretty healthy considering I’ve dyed it about 10 times since I was a freshman in high school. Not only did I love it, everyone else did as well. I would get compliments left and right about how healthy my long hair looked, how girly and feminine it made me. Slowly but surely, my hair became a security blanket.

Being an athlete, there can sometimes be a stereotype that there is a lack of femininity. I try often to reject this as I completely disagree that being an athlete sucks away the amazing things that come with being a woman. Just because I kick a soccer ball around a few times a week and maybe squat more than some of the men that claim to be oh-so-macho, doesn’t change all of the wonderful things that make me a woman. That being said, I was a complete hypocrite and relied on my long hair to boost what I had always believed in. I became so reliant on something so minor and superficial to make me feel pretty. It was, quite frankly, ridiculous.

So I chopped it. One day I was over the amount of time I spent each morning trying to look “feminine.” I’m a woman! Of course, I’m feminine, because I choose to be. I am ashamed that I focused so much on what the stereotype encompasses that I put myself in a box.

This is the perfect time to push ourselves out of the boxes we, or society, puts us into. So I did it. I chopped my hair. I chopped it because screw security blankets. It’s the time to grow and love ourselves and break out of the boxes that even we put ourselves in.

So as I heard the snip-snip of the scissors, I felt liberation beyond just the weight of the strands, but I could not longer hide behind the sheath of hair. It was all about me now.