The Decisive Chop

I got a haircut recently.

I know that to most people, that’s nothing special. The reaction I expect my opening line to elicit is a confused “Yeah, and?”. But as a nineteen-year-old, I’ve only had a real, styled haircut twice in my life: once when I was about three or four and had the childish curiosity to see what it would be like to cut my own hair. My mother had to take me to get it shaped into a layered bob to hide how uneven it was. The second time was when I was about nine and donated my hair to Locks of Love. (I saw that as my dues paid- I had made a donation, so I was allowed to have long hair without guilt!) Even after cutting it, it was still well past my shoulders, yet the hairdresser had put unsolicited layers into it, making it longer in the front than in the back. My mother had been extremely peeved about that, for I was a lazy child when it came to personal hygiene and didn’t even brush my own hair until I was in middle school. My hair has always been incredibly thick and easily tangled, and she wanted it to be as low-maintenance as possible to cut down her workload.

That’s the extent of my experience with actual styled cuts. I remember going through a phase where I really wanted bangs, but my mother always told me a firm “No,” (and I’m glad she did). In the first half of the past ten or so years, I would get the dead ends of my hair trimmed off whenever I’d go in for an eyebrow waxing, a process that would take less than ten minutes. In the second half, I had a disastrous experience and stopped waxing altogether, and moved around so often that I didn’t have time to establish a new hairdresser- at least not one that I trusted. In recent years, whenever my hair would get “too long” (translation: whenever I had something coming up that made it necessary for me to not look like the Grudge), I would have my mom tie the bare minimum I needed to have cut off into a ponytail and snip it away with kitchen shears. 

I have a cosmetologist cousin who could’ve easily done that for me, and I’m sure I could’ve tagged along to some of Mom’s hair appointments to get it done. However, I wanted my mother to be the one that did it, because I could scream at her whenever I thought she was about to cut off too much, yanking the ponytail holder down further so that I would only be losing the wispy ends that were better defined as hay rather than hair.

To be honest, I don’t know when my unhealthy attachment to my hair began. I think it was accidental. I don’t remember being attached to it as a child- after all, I did cut it off myself. I was a busy kid, swamped with extracurriculars and always on the go, so fitting in a haircut was usually the furthest thing from our minds. Additionally, I have hair like a hydra- whatever I cut off seems to instantly shoot back longer and stronger than before.

The first memory I have of being overly obsessed with my hair is when I was thirteen, almost fourteen. It was April, and I don’t quite remember the reason why I was going for a haircut- perhaps it had something to do with my upcoming dance recital in May, or the fact that I would be going to my first summer ballet program in June and would have my first experience of having to put my hair in a bun every single day. At that point, I didn’t know that doing a ballet bun was a lot simpler than it looked, and was convinced that the only way for my thick yet incredibly fine hair to stay in a bun was to put it in a ponytail and then into two braids, wrapping the braids around the ponytail holder until I had a massive mound on top of my head.

Whatever the occasion, I remember being very annoyed that I was getting a haircut. I remember constantly running a brush through my hair on the way to the salon, saying goodbye to it as if I was saying goodbye to a family member on life support. My hairdresser was a family friend, so I’m sure that even though I said that I just wanted to get the dead ends trimmed, my mother had probably told her when making the appointment that I needed to get more cut off. The two chatted as I got my trim, whereas I was white-knuckling the arms of the chair, each snip setting my teeth on edge.

When the hairdresser finished, I asked if I could use the bathroom before I left. I ran in and locked the door behind me, obsessively touching my hair, feeling empty and unsatisfied when I ran my hands through it and had to stop three inches higher than I usually did. Before the cut, I’d estimate that my hair was just above my waist, and it had been reduced to a jaw-dropping (at least for insecure thirteen-year-old Ryn) mid-boob level. I remember staring in the mirror and crying until my mom knocked on the door and said we had to go. I whined about it the rest of the night, complaining that it wasn’t long enough anymore. When I expressed my distress to my friends at dance that evening, they furrowed their brows and said that they literally couldn’t notice that my hair had been cut at all.

I think that I wasn’t attached to my hair as a child because I wasn’t as insecure- even then I was obsessed with success and being the best, but the driving force behind those emotions hadn’t reached full maturity yet. I think the obsession began in middle school, which is universally slated as the worst time of a person’s life. My experience was no different. Middle school-aged children are given their first tastes of freedom and their first opportunities to be mature, yet they’re still developing and being exposed to things that cause them to unconsciously realize that they have no idea who they are or what they’re doing. They lash out at others in their anxiety, which causes a vicious cycle of insecurity. 

My unhealthy perfectionism began to bare its teeth in middle school, and that paired with tweenager politics and being bullied caused massive self-esteem issues. My hair was always something that people have commented on- I came out of the womb with a full head of it, so much so that my mother was able to easily clip a barrette into it within an hour of my birth. Ever since it’s been dark and thick and impossibly soft. My hair has always been something that’s complimented and commented on, and insecure middle schooler Ryn attached herself to that. It became something to set me apart from others; something I could be positively recognized for, yet at the same time it was a security blanket that I could hide behind.

One would expect that an attachment like that would abate with age, but in my experience, it only grew. As I graduated middle school and entered the cutthroat world of ballet training, I was introduced to an entirely different crop of insecurities. I did feel significantly marked as an amateur outsider when it was impossible for me to get my buns to lie flat to my head like most of the other girls, but at other times I wore my “turd buns” (as I refer to them now that I’m further away from the situation) like a badge of honor, marking me as different in a good way.

Vivid memories of hair obsession start when I was fourteen and in my first year of ballet school. By the time I started the fall session, my hair had already shot back down to my waist after my April haircut. I remember taking photos to exaggerate its length, taking it down whenever possible so that I could get people to notice it, and staring at and running my fingers through it in the mirror before the shower. I began to use my hair to compare myself to certain figures and creatures that made me feel beautiful or powerful or special, such as a queen, an elf (Tolkien, not North Pole), a faerie, etc. and etc. Putting this on paper makes it sound like I was egotistical, but I was really entering the most insecure period of my life, and was attaching myself to anything that made me feel like I had worth and value and something special. I earned nicknames like Brunette Rapunzel and the Grudge- positive or negative, I didn’t care, as long as the attention was on my hair.

As much as I thrived on the positive comments, I fed equally as much on the negative. Any time someone said anything about how my hair was too long or needed to be cut, I took it as an insult of the highest order, and it only fueled my fire to grow my hair even longer and show it off. I’m going to fight a lifelong battle against my need to be different at any cost, and I attached myself to the unique thing about me that stood out the most.

In a way, I treated it like my baby. Whenever my hands aren’t occupied I’m always playing with my hair, and I’ve always been obsessed with its naturally silky texture. I’ve made a pact to never dye it until I start going grey, I never blow-dry it, and I refuse to use any sort of heat tool on it on a regular basis- my hair is naturally rather straight, and if I want it curled, I put it in foam rollers overnight. I was firmly against doing anything that would take away the natural shine and impossibly soft texture of my hair- or inhibit its growth.

I reached an almost frightening point when I was about sixteen. My hair had grown so long that I was almost able to sit on it, yet I was in the beginning of my battle with Hashimoto’s and in my biggest hair-loss phase, so it had lost about half of its thickness. It had become a muddy river of stringy strands, so dead and faded that it was blonde at the ends. It caused me an enormous amount of embarrassment when it refused to be contained in a bun, and got ridiculed for it falling out in front of my entire ballet class. Despite that, I was still attached to it, but my mom insisted that I needed to at least get it trimmed. It had been two years since I’d gotten a haircut, after all, and it was time.

So, on Thanksgiving of 2016, my cousin cut my hair and I cried whilst my entire family looked on. It had been taken from being the length of my dress to below my waist, and I still felt like something massive had been taken away from me.

I had one more incident later in the school year when my ballet coach told me that I needed to cut my hair because my bun was too big, and again spent the entire evening brooding. In this, my mother was on my side, for she hated the rigid ballet standards of everyone being expected to be carbon copies of one another. She cut barely two inches off my hair over the kitchen trashcan before doing whatever she could to make my hair flatter to meet the standard without fully giving in to the order to cut considerable length off- including straightening it with an iron so that it was as flat as possible and doing a bun with three twists instead of one. It worked somewhat, and my hair wasn’t mentioned again.

Throughout all this time, I entertained ideas of myself with different haircuts- sharp bobs; soft, artsy medium lengths with half-buns; bangs; chunky layers… but I never considered actually getting those cuts, instead saying that I would buy wigs so that I could try them out without losing my prized possession. (Though I did get clip-in bangs, because I’ve never gotten over that fantasy, but cutting bangs is a bad idea when you’re very low-maintenance about your hair and also hate having hair in your face.) It had become a part of me and given me my aesthetic- I was “The Girl With the Long, Dark Hair That Looks Like a Princess or a Game of Thrones Character or Something.” What would I be without it? Certainly not special, I thought.

Despite my attachment, I did acknowledge that the length of my skirt was too long for hair, and was more open to the idea of cutting it, yet no happier about it. I asked my mother to cut my hair the night before I moved to Las Vegas, for it had shot back down almost to where it was when I cut it on Thanksgiving two years earlier. I refused to let her cut off any more than about the dead three or so inches at the bottom, and it was a change that was barely noticeable- so much so that my hair didn’t even have the blunted edge it usually does after a cut.

The more “frequent” trims and my better overall health resulted in my hair growing even faster whilst still maintaining its thickness all the way to the ends. During my first few months in Vegas, I walked around with hair down to my butt. I still got compliments on it and had people wanting to touch and play with it all the time, and I fed on that as much as always. However, as I was eighteen by that point and wanted to be perceived as an adult, I stopped liking my shockingly long mane as much. It was growing bothersome and made me look like an overgrown child. 

In January of 2019 I was getting some new headshots made, and worked up the courage to ask my mom to cut my hair. I reasoned that I wanted to be known as “That Girl With the Pretty Long Hair,” and not “That Girl With the Scary Long Hair- Is She Amish or Something?” She agreed wholeheartedly- she had been desperately wanting me to get it cut, but also wanted me to make that decision myself.

We stood in the kitchen of my apartment as she tied off what she was going to cut off, and I made her show it to me and move the ponytail holder down about three times before I let her start cutting. I heard the snips and felt the tension on my head pull and release as the ponytail was cut away, and cried. Mom handed me the five-inch bundle of hair- I still have it. For some reason it felt wrong to throw it away. 

I went to the bathroom to observe my new “cut”- above my waist but below my bra line, still long, but not unreasonably so. I suddenly got the urge to go in and tell her to chop more off, but I stopped myself, running my fingers through my hair and thinking about how I didn’t know if I would ever let it get down to my butt again.

But like I’ve mentioned, my hair grows fast. By October it was back down to my hips, but I had a job coming up and felt like I should cut it before that. We repeated the process, cutting my hair slightly shorter- to my bra line. That time I didn’t care as much. In fact, I felt liberated. I again had the urge to cut even more off, but I resisted yet again, tucking the detached ponytail into a drawer with the other one and going about my business.

My hair seemed to be as insistent upon it being long as I was, for by January 2020, it had already grown all the way back out. By that point, though, I was quite disenchanted with it. It was too difficult to do any sort of styling to it, and I could never fix it so that it suited me. I liked to look youthful, but it was making me look downright childish. It drove me insane any time it was down, and there were multiple times when I was tempted to seize the nearest scissors and shear it all off. 

But I never did. My hair had become part of my personality. It was who I was. It gave me my preferred aesthetic impressions- otherworldly, queen-like, a fantasy character…someone different. If I lost my long hair, I would lose all of that, too. I wouldn’t be the same person anymore, or so I thought.

The deciding moment came after a successful audition for a program I’ll be starting in August. The director had said that part of the program is image training, and that makeovers- including haircuts- were an optional part of the deal. (I’ve always steeled myself to not be that dramatic person that refuses things like that- I’ve watched too many meltdowns on America’s Next Top Model. ) He mentioned that wearing a ponytail made me look too childish, and that commercial dance meant hair down, though, of course, my hair was too long to be worn down. Later, he said- all good-naturedly- that my features were small and needed to have attention drawn to them, and so they’d probably cut a few layers into my hair to frame my face and make me stand out.

After that was said to me, I became obsessed with the idea.

I sought out photos of commercial dance auditions, noting that the majority of them did wear their hair down, or only half-up. I Googled celebrities with similar face shapes to mine, seeing how they had their hair styled. I had another audition coming up in February, and I wanted to do everything I possibly could to stand out and be successful. My mother had a hair stylist that she loved, and I mentioned my idea of going to see her before my next audition. She refused to give me her opinion as to whether or not I should do so- my hair was so precious to me that she didn’t want to be blamed if I cut it and didn’t like it. She wanted me to be the one to make the ultimate, unbiased decision. After a week of inappropriately agonizing over it, I told her to go ahead and make the appointment.

I felt nervous about the appointment, but I wasn’t expecting a dramatic transformation- I knew I would get length cut off, but I figured it would only be to around my bra line. I imagined the bulk of the change would be getting layers put in to add some dimension to my hair and make it easier to wear down.

Boy, was I wrong.

Before going to the salon, I took photos of my hair from all angles- a ritual I do every time I’m about to get it cut. I’m not sure why I do so, but in this instance I was glad that I did. However, that time I wasn’t as preoccupied with staring at it in the mirror and touching it constantly, prematurely mourning what was about to be gone. By that point, I think I was ready.

My mom and I arrived at the salon, and I explained in a very wordy fashion my “goal” for my haircut, because I didn’t really have enough knowledge on the subject of styled cuts to know what I truly wanted. I gave the number Mom and I had decided that I should get cut off- about six inches- and said that I wanted to have some face-framing layers, hair that’s easier to wear down, and something that suited me. Mom has called this stylist a “hair wizard” on more than one occasion, and in a rare moment of relinquishing my control freak tendencies, I trusted that judgement completely and put the fate of my tresses entirely in her hands.

She decided to cut the bulk of it off before my wash, and took off the six inches with a few chops. The feeling sent shivers down my spine, but their origin was excitement instead of nerves. Once my hair was washed, she continued to cut. With each step she would show me how much she was cutting off and ask me if it was too short, but her last measurement was a bit of a trick, for she ended up cutting a few inches higher than she showed me. She was certainly playing a risky game, but she was also a person that once had an attachment to her long hair, so she knew what she was doing.

When she flipped my hair over my shoulders and went to grab her blow-dryer, my heart skipped a beat. My rather classily-worded request for a mid-boob length cut had turned into one that extended little more than an inch below my collarbones. I know that by normal standards, I had a medium-length cut, but for a person that hadn’t had hair above their waist for six years, it was short. Literally half of my hair was laying in a pile on the floor.

Mom locked eyes with me in the mirror from where she was sitting at the back of the small salon, and I could tell from her expression that she was nervous, waiting for me to get upset or cry or freak out. I gave her the most reassuring smile I had, for my feelings were quite the contrary. I felt liberated, excited, and almost upset that the stylist was done cutting. As she went about styling it, both she and my mother were treating me a bit like an unstable therapy patient, trying to keep me calm, saying that it seemed shorter than it actually was because it was getting curled. But when I said I didn’t mind, I truly meant it- I even joked about coming back for my next appointment and wanting it cut even shorter, which actually might end up being the case.

When she swept the apron off of my shoulders, I stared at myself and finally understood why people have the massive urge to cut their hair off after a breakup. I felt like a completely new woman. With the simple action of cutting off something that can and will grow back, I seemed to also cut off all of the baggage and trauma and insecurities of my adolescent years.

In the car on the way home, I couldn’t stop looking at it, touching it, rearranging it. Mom said she loved it, and I marveled about how I never realized that a haircut like that suited me so much better than my signature fantasy mane- a signature that I had taken away from myself. 

I was a bit nervous to go home and show my dad- he would be the first unbiased reaction, and I worried that what he said might completely dissolve my happiness and make me regret my decision. However, he loved it, and after the positive comments that poured in after I posted a photo of my new cut on my Instagram story- more messages than I had ever received in one sitting outside of my birthday, some from people I barely even spoke to- my love for it was solidified.

I’ve always been a very daydream- and visualization-oriented person, living 75% in the future and only 25% in the present. Over that time, I’ve created this elusive vision of my “ideal future self” that’s achieved all of her dreams on all fronts- career, domestic, personal, and otherwise. The strange thing about that haircut, such a small and insignificant event in a human life that has the potential to be marked by professional milestones and big moves and marriages and the birth of children, was that every time I saw my reflection, I felt like I looked more like that idealized version of my future self. It really didn’t have anything to do with my hairstyle, but rather, I had graduated to a phase in my personal growth where I was confident enough that I didn’t feel the need to attach myself to a physical trait to be noticed or known.

I had graduated to a phase in my personal growth where I was confident enough that I didn’t feel the need to attach myself to a physical trait to be noticed or known.

There are many cultures in which cutting one’s hair is something very significant- an act of mourning, an act of cleansing, an act of renewal. I strongly see the truth in all of those aspects- I mourn for the young girl that felt her authentic self too little to be recognized, and that she needed to hide behind something uniquely extreme to get the attention she craved. I feel cleansed of the negative thought patterns associated with my hair attachment, and completely renewed on all counts. I won’t be known as “The Girl With the Long, Dark Hair” anymore, and that’s okay. I’d much rather be known as “The Girl With the Incredibly Intriguing Energy That Makes You Desperate to Know Her Better.”

I think I’ll be more adventurous with my hair from now on. I commented on the night of my cut that I didn’t think I’d ever grow it out again, but I’m not sure that’s true. I’ll probably grow it out again when I’m in the mood, but I’ll also not be shy about trying new things. The next time I get the urge to cut my hair into a bob, maybe I’ll try it. Because it’s just hair. It grows back, and it doesn’t define who I am. I’m not fretting over how my hair no longer makes me look like a fantasy queen or an elf or any other mythical creature that I’m fascinated by, because aesthetic comes from within. You can be as queenly with a bald head as you can with hair down to your toes, as long as the energy is there. The bonus is that I can now try a new aesthetic for every mood, since I’ve no longer consciously molded myself to fit into a certain box. I could have the aesthetic of a nymph one day and a punk the next. All of that stems from mood and energy, and not outside appearance.

If you’re a person that’s never been overly attached to your hair, this article is probably a bit confusing for you, but chances are there’s something outside yourself that you’ve become attached to as part of your personality. The moral of all of this is to take my advice and don’t build your identity around something physical- whether it be a facial feature or a career or the type of media you consume. I had the same issue when I was deciding whether or not to leave ballet- I had formed my identity around my status as a ballerina, and I thought I wouldn’t be the same person if I no longer had that. The only thing that changed, however, is that I became healthier and happier. Just like what I experienced with the simple act of a haircut.

I believe it’s important to remember that physical things in your life are the result of your identity, not the other way around.

I believe it’s important to remember that physical things in your life are the result of your identity, not the other way around. All appearances fade eventually, relationships end, and careers change unexpectedly. However, I feel that everyone attaches themselves to at least one physical thing in their life to give them a sense of self-worth, accomplishment, or individuality. If there’s anything you can take away from this, I’d like it to be the inspiration to take one of those things away from yourself, if possible. 

My meaning isn’t to abandon your job if you love it, or step away from your children if you’ve built yourself around parenting. In a situation like that, instead of giving them up, find some time for yourself away from those defining characteristics and seek out what defines you at your core. An exercise I recently did that I found incredibly helpful was writing a love letter to myself, giving appreciation to traits that come from within, such as “I love your curiosity,” “I love your dedication,” “I love how you’re not afraid of your feelings,” and “I love how open you are to new experiences.” Someone may be attracted to your outward appearance when they first meet you, but those are the things that make someone fall and stay in love.

But if the thing you’re obsessively attached to is your hair, by all means, cut your hair. If you hate it, you can grow it back out, and with a new head of long hair you’ll also have a renewed sense of self-love.

Taking security blankets away from yourself is an underrated act of self-care. It can be terrifying and make us feel lost and discombobulated, but we come out on the other side with a deeper knowledge of ourselves, how beautiful and intricate our inner worlds are, how the soul shines brighter than everything, and that it’s the part that’s most worth getting to know. After all, we come into this world squashed and red and squealing and covered in gross substances, completely blank canvases with no defining traits whatsoever- yet our parents love us unconditionally from the start.

(Healthy) Parents are known for being constant supporters, always telling us that they support and love us just as much if we change something about ourselves, because that’s not the reason why they love us. They love us for who we are beyond those things. As human beings, we need to treat ourselves as if we are our own parents, and love what’s on the inside more than what’s on the outside. Of course, it’s totally okay if you consider your career or hobby or signature trait part of who you are. Tapping into a healthier side of my brain, I’ve observed that I consider being a writer to be a part of me, but I’ve never felt a need to unhealthily attach myself to that quality, making it a necessary factor in the equation of my self-worth. It’s part of who I am, but I don’t care if people know me for it or not. It’s just something I enjoy doing and feel I have the knack for. That’s the difference- embracing versus idolizing.

Yes, this entire philosophical statement was spawned out of a thirty-minute haircut. But my decisive chop was an important milestone in my journey of removing my idolized traits and finding a more stable and authentic self love. I encourage you to do the same, for it’s sure to lead to stronger happiness and satisfaction.

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment and pass it on to others who might like to give it a read!