My junior year of high school I was angry, depressed and suicidal. I felt powerless and broken, numb to everyone and everything around me. I was defeated…or at least I thought I was.

The truth is, I am still broken. But the girl I once was died a long time ago, and her place has been taken by someone who was created to be alive and fearless. I was embraced by a love that isn’t anxious or insecure but that is uncontrollable and wild. A love that soothes and satisfies, and graciously accepts the broken bits and pieces that plague my imperfectly feeble flesh. Redeemed through mercy, nothing could stop me.

Then I did something drastic.

I cut all of my hair off. I chopped off inches and layers of dead burden that had been bearing down on my shoulders for countless years, and after a few quick snips of the sheers, I was free.

Burning like a hot flame refusing to be tamed, the spark was the only thing sustaining me, and I craved more. I didn’t cut my hair following a trend in Vogue or trying to gain the attention of some silly boy, I did it for myself in hopes that the physical attempt of disentangling myself from oppressive weight would give me more of what I was so hungry for. I tore down my prideful feminine identity, and I have never felt better.

Then my hair started growing back.

I kept cutting it, but eventually it grew thicker. My hair continually became heavier and after awhile, I decided to let it grow. Entangled by the knotted mess I soon found myself wrapped up in, I gave up fighting it and accepted its growth.

Almost three years have past since I severed myself from my heavy burdens and the deadness that consumed me. But this year, during my freshman year of college, I found myself in a similar place I once was, suffocating underneath an unnecessary load and lost beneath pressures and discomforts. We, like our hair, grow over time, and as each new year passes, I find myself still struggling and still learning. Purely out of impulse and a desperate grasp towards a once familiar feeling of carefree youth, I cut it all off again.

People asked me why I did it, and honestly, I didn’t have an answer. Did I need to have a reason for changing my hair just because it didn’t aesthetically please other people? But now, looking back on what I originally viewed as a regretted mistake when I was crying to my mom because all my hair was gone, I realize that I didn’t necessarily cut it for myself this time.

I heard a comment the other day about a guy who stated that Rapunzel in Disney’s Tangled “downgraded” when she cut her hair. Comments like these, others that refer to women with short hair as "dikes," and an article published by Total Frat Move titled “Why Women Should Not Cut Their Hair Short,” (which you can read here) pushed me over the edge. This is why I cut my hair this time, not for just myself, but for every woman who has every been compared to idiotic beauty standards set by frat boys in tight polos and khaki shorts.

Women, this cut is for you. We may be broken, as all humans are, but we are not defeated. Cut your hair if you want, or keep it long, the choice is yours.