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With swift movements, my hairdresser started cutting off about 30 centimeters of my hair. It was a spontaneous idea, born the minute she picked up a few strands to examine my curls. I immediately agreed to her plan. Every time I looked in the mirror, my hair reminded me of the shitty chapters of my life that I wanted to leave behind for good.

Since late 2015, I've worn my hair long. Very long, usually till halfway down my back. I think I had a grand total of three haircuts between then and now, and I always stuck to the same hairstyle. My hair was long when I went through a serious break-up, my hair was long when I was more or less forced to quit college, my hair was long when I was in therapy for my inferiority complex. And it was long when I started hating blogging for becoming overly commercialized.
Somehow all these negative experiences and feelings became entangled in my long curly hair. My hair represented every trauma I wanted to leave behind. Instead, I was confronted with them every time I looked in the mirror. Eventually, I started avoiding reflective surfaces, especially when my parents were traveling in Canada and I was too busy keeping the house habitable. Those were some strange weeks. My body was busy, but my mind sat idly in the corner. I spent most of those days slowly making a plan for the future. I didn't blog so I wouldn't get distracted. Neither did I write or read much. Pretty soon I was focused on getting ready for university. And as the pieces of the puzzle of this new time in my life were presented to me, I decided I don't want to be a blogger. I want to be a storyteller, and this blog will be my medium. The minute I came to this conclusion was the minute I felt like I could finally chase my dreams and make them come true at university.
Yet on the rare occasions when I saw my own reflection again, I was reminded of the unhappy, failed blogger who'd dropped out of college. I'd fall back into a gloomy pit of destructive thoughts. The past swallowed me whole whenever I looked in a mirror. I knew I could not let that keep happening. I had to make a change. And that's why I decided to cut my hair off. So I could let my life begin again at university without constantly being reminded of the past.

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In a few seconds, my long hair was gone. A few minutes later, I had a short, wavy bob. I couldn't help but smile when I saw myself in the mirror.
My hairdresser showed me the ponytail she'd just cut off. 'It's really heavy,' she said as she handed me my hair. It weighed way more than I expected, as if it really was saturated with all the pain, all the hurt and all my demons from the past few years. I grinned as my hairdresser dumped it all in the bin. 'You're free.'
'I'm free,' I said too. Free to start over, free to begin again. Finally. I'm ready to turn the page and start the next chapter. Will you join me?