Ever since I was little, I’ve always had long hair. It was just my thing. I was short. I was loud. I had long hair. I was recognizable because of my hair. My hair is such a large part of who I am that I’ve only ever had three haircuts in my life: when I was 10, when I was 16, and when I was 21.
The decision to cut my hair each time came from a place of many reasons. Entire seasons passed by as I asked myself if I really was ready to cut my hair. I mean, it’s not like I could take the decision back or anything. Sometimes, the decision was as simple as, “It’s hot outside and I don’t want two feet of hair sitting on my neck.”
Sometimes, it’s more about causing change. I’ve donated my hair (the most recently to Wigs for Kids) because I can always grow it back. I should give it to someone who can’t. But sometimes it’s more complicated than that.
The first time I cut my hair, I did it because Georgian summers are unbearable. I did not want to spend the last summer of elementary school bogged down by long hair. I had adventures to go on; hair would only tie me up.
The second time I cut my hair, I knew I wanted to donate it, but if I’m being honest, that wasn’t my true reason. I was 16-years-old and never had a day of rebellion in my life. For the first two years of high school, I was told every day, by everyone, that I couldn’t cut my hair.
They meant it as a compliment. That it was too pretty to cut. But it was the wrong thing to say. A friend said that short hair would make me look weird after my hair hit me in the face during gym class. An almost-stranger told me that they wouldn’t have the patience to grow it out all over again. A friend’s mother jealously sighed and tried to convince me that -- despite my never-been-kissed status -- boys would fawn over me because of my hair.
All of it said that I wasn’t enough just as me. As if the length of my hair determined anything about my personality or self-worth. So when our air conditioning broke the fourth day of summer, it was a sign. I chopped it off and didn’t look back.
The third time I cut my hair, it was because I wanted to. It had been six years since I had last cut my hair. It was now almost longer than I was tall. Gorgeous curls that cascaded past my waist. I felt like a Fairy Queen, something right out of a story.
But it was time for a change. It was so long that I couldn’t brush it properly because my arm couldn’t reach the end. It got caught in everything. It would tangle in a chair during dinner and trapped me when I tried to stand up. Forget driving with the windows down. The vacuum of air sucked it up so fast that I didn’t realize strands were caught until I opened the door and successfully gave myself whiplash. It was a pain, but whenever I spoke about cutting it, I received stares of horror.
The first thing people ever noticed was my hair. That’s not a bad thing, in and of itself, but it was the only they saw. They never actually noticed me.
Cutting my hair was my way to reclaim myself. My boyfriend did not stop loving me because I have short hair. My friends do not find me any less entertaining because I have short hair. My personality has not changed because I have short hair.
Short hair has given me a chance to express who I am without having to completely destroy the image of who I was. My appearance does not determine my worth, and I can finally accept that.
I’ll grow my hair out again. I’ll probably wait another six years to cut it, too. But never again will I shy from expressing myself because of fear about what others will think of me.
