Before my sophomore year of high school, I never cut my hair. I would trim it every few years to keep it healthy but not enough for anyone to notice a difference. My long hair was my comfort shield - it was my curtain I could hide behind to avoid the things I didn’t want to see or feel. But after cutting off 12 inches of hair sophomore year and then another 13 inches this past summer, here are the ways that my life only got better because of it:
Being open to the world.
Once I cut off the only thing that served as my safety blanket from my fears, I had no other choice but to face them - literally. The second those scissors touched my hair I was automatically forced to let the world see me; I opened my eyes wider, I smiled more often, I transformed from a closed book where you could only see the cover to letting the world read every page.
Realizing that appearance doesn’t make a person.
My whole life I’ve been told by strangers, “You have such long, pretty hair. Don’t ever cut it!” But I never wanted to be defined as the girl with the long hair, I wanted to be known for the girl behind the brown strands. Because either with hair that travels down to my waist or hair that tickles across my collarbones, I’m a person who is made up entirely of experiences, feelings, and morals. The length of my hair doesn’t determine the quality of my personality.
Learning how to cope with heartbreak.
Every person has their own personal tactic they use to cope with hardships in their life. My tactic is that I like drastic change - I want the thrill of feeling like a whole new person without actually changing who I am. I guess I’m convinced that if I replace something old in my life with something new, then my heartbreak will disappear with whatever I decide to leave behind. In this case, long lost sadnesses of mine live in every strand of hair I cut away for the time being. New strands grew back, some laced with new sadnesses and some left with traces of old, but nothing I can’t cut away again.
It is a common trend for a girl to ask the opinion of all her friends before she decides to cut her hair. “How short should I cut it? Can I pull off short hair? I don’t want to regret it.” My advice will always be to cut your hair for you - whether it is the new trend or the change that you are looking for in your life. Cutting off your hair can be a drastic change, but it is not a permanent one. It gives the effect of living a new life but also the comfort of returning to your old one after a period of time. I cut my hair as a way to heal my heartbreak and I know one day it will grow back with a whole new story to tell. I hope it is a story I will be happy to keep but if it’s not, that’s nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix.
