Would You Still Love Me If My Hair Didn't Touch My Shoulders?

Elisabeth Kay

Would You Still Love Me if My Hair Didn't Touch My Shoulders? 

At the beginning of the summer, I’d made the decision that I wanted to cut my hair. My hair was always something I leaned on to define myself. When I looked in the mirror all I saw was ringlet curls perfectly laid right above my ribs.  My hair was its own being, its own entity, that lived alongside me. It was my comfort blanket, my safe haven.

In seventh grade, I had the first realization I wanted to cut my hair shorter. This was foreign to me– though my mom never told me I couldn’t, cutting my hair short was something that felt like an unspoken but firm no. But my favorite YouTuber at the time had just chopped all of her hair off, so why not me next?

This was a rude awakening to the curls on my head. I learned the lesson of how important it was to find the right hairdresser– and that it certainly was not my local Great Clips. For years and years and years after that tragic haircut, I’d sworn off touching my hair with a sharp object. It was never going to go above my shoulders ever again. Even when I’d used a permanent box dye to color it purple, and it nearly fell off in chunks, I didn’t even consider bringing scissors to it. Once again, the long length stayed stagnant, and so did I. 

I depended on other people for validation. The only time a true smile crossed my face was when I was gleaming in the attention of others– particularly a man. I’d tuck a curly strand behind my ear when a man makes me blush and bat my eyes until he calls me pretty, or at least thinks it to himself. Chasing after men was a norm I’d made for myself. I only felt whole when having one texting me, even if it was sporadic and obvious I was putting in more than he was.

But in August, I took an elevator up to a new hair salon, and put my trust into a woman I had just met to cut at least seven inches of hair off of my head. The cut looked perfect on the women in my Pinterest board, like something that a man would still want. But when the hairdresser spun me around for the final look, I hoped she didn’t catch the split-second look of horror wash over my eyes. I didn’t recognize myself. 

I didn’t have a long enough strand to tuck behind my ear, barely had enough for a ponytail. I tried to convince myself I loved it. I tried to convince myself I didn’t feel the emptiness of the hole where male validation used to reside. It took months of me hating it, staring at the bottle of Biotin on my nightstand. Until one day, I no longer had to try and convince myself. It was a realization my heart had been waiting for– I am so much more than where my hair falls, than what a man thinks of me, than what I put myself down to be. I started to feel full again. Though I’m still unsure of how soon scissors will meet my curls, the hole is no longer empty. It's been filled with different kinds of love I no longer take for granted– pebbles, loosely filling that space.

Edited by Belle O’Hara & Kate Castello