So here’s how I ended up with short hair

It was a dark and stormy night.

No, it wasn’t. It was a grey-ish day in Frankfurt. I think I was 29. Before, my hair had been various lengths, from well over my shoulders to about chin length at its shortest, and I’d very often cut it myself – it’s wavy to curly, so I didn’t need to be super accurate. At the time of that fateful hairdresser’s visit, I already had short-ish hair, about chin length. But I felt daring. So I booked an appointment with a proper hairdresser and told him, holding two fingers apart about five to six centimetres, that I’d like him to cut everything this short, equal length all over. He started cutting, and my hair got shorter and shorter. And shorter. And I sat there, in that hideous hairdresser cloak that makes nobody look good, still. In terror. Everything was short, with the sides and back slightly shorter. SHORT!

I didn’t confront him, but paid and walked out. And then walked around Frankfurt’s centre for an hour and a half or so, in a daze. A dazed, deep misery. It’s probably more a women thing how your hair can affect your whole state of being. And my state of being was thoroughly awful.

Then I went to meet my aunt to watch the "Titanic". We all know the story of the Titanic: ship sinks, loads of people die miserably and also in terror. This being a movie, and a very long one at that, there was very drawn out dying miserably in terror, with screeching violins all the way through.

I can’t tell you how emotionally exhausted I was when I finally got home that evening. I took off my coat, and went into my tiny bathroom to look at myself. And as I stood there in front of the mirror, I thought

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Not bad, actually.”

A few weeks later, I bought clippers. That was that.

I had always thought that without my hair, nobody would look at me, but I was wrong about that, too.

Still, I’m not sure if I could have done the short hair much earlier. Turns out I was ready for it, even though I hadn't known it. These days, when I see images of women with freshly cropped hair, I envy them a little for that first moment of seeing themselves.