Why I Chopped My Hair Off
I needed a change.
Yes, it was drastic cutting off about 8 inches of my hair.
Hair cuts are temporary though, in my opinion, temporary as in several months temporary but temporary nonetheless.
Having long hair has been “my thing” for quite sometime now. The accessory that added the perfect finishing touch to my outfits. My friends have always gawked at how I could spend a decent amount of time curling it, throw it up into a quick messy bun and take it out hours later with it looking like fabulous beach waves. It was my easiest accessory. Most reliable. Easiest to maintain; had it cut once a year that’s it. It was the one thing I had, the one piece of magic I could use if I felt insecure without make up or in an outfit, even if I felt insecure about how I looked after sex. I could just let my hair down and I’d feel beautiful.
I’ve been in quarantine for weeks now, but saw this storm coming nearly in slow motion. As if viewing a tornado from afar knowing it was headed your way but you had time to acknowledge it, make necessary mental adjustments for the change you were about to experience, get what you needed to keep you safe and get home.
Though I ebb in flow in my emotional state daily due to this worldwide lockdown, I have adjusted. To my understanding of what adjusted looks and feel like. I began to make it my priority to use this time to do the things, at home, that I’ve written in multiple lists to complete but held onto for an embarrassing length of time. Before I knew it, I was blowing past the tedious at home projects and realizing that this was the time to make a larger change. A change in me.
Change as we know doesn’t happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen because you decide to cut your hair and stay indoors. It was however a stepping stone, a stair in a long upward staircase. Depending upon how you look at it.
In a thankfully short period of time since this COVID quarantine has ensued upon us I have adjusted my mental sails. Planning, lists, schedule books, processes are all characteristics that run in my blood and though these traits can be helpful they can also hinder true progress and change to occur.
This was not in my plans. It was not in my plans to lose my main source of income overnight.
I saw the tide turning and knew that if I didn’t catch this wave, if I let it wash over me, let it pull me down by the ankles in it’s undertow, I would drown in the mediocracy I feared.
So I made a change.
There are numerous facets to my life and my character I’ve wanted to improve. From career, finances, education and relationships to nutrition and physical health but I knew all these pieces required time which I felt I seldom had enough of to truly devote to these changes. If I’m being honest with myself, which is one of my active character changes, I had the time but not the motivation to use the time for this.
Among the beginning moments of new self-identifying change, my hair style no longer felt like it suited me. I wanted to let go of the security my long hair gave me or so I believed it did. I wanted to continue to embrace the waves of these changes as they hit so I rode this wave all the way to a high stool with my supportive boyfriend holding the scissors. My boyfriend who was titled as such moments before making the cut. Story for another time.
The haircut is just a piece. Change is ever evolving and I respect it as such. I don’t expect that by the time the country reopens I will be a completely different person, plus I think I’m pretty great already but I want more from myself. I want to push myself to be the best human I can be.
The haircut was just a piece.
