Bad hair days. Knots. Blow dryers. Hairspray. Serums. Deep conditioners. Frizz. Curlers.

These are just a handful of the things I decided to give up on Monday morning when I chopped 9 inches of my hair off. But in addition to these things, I also gave up a conventional definition of femininity and a big, unhappy part of my past.

Hair can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Like a lot of women, my hair was both. When I was lucky, it was just the right combination of volume, shine, waves, and perfection. On those days, I felt like a million bucks because I felt beautiful. All my other insecurities just melted away as I walked to class smugly thinking, “I know I look good.”

But on bad days… well, that was a whole other situation.

Those were the days where no amount of heat, products, or teasing could hide my faults. I’ve had thin hair my whole life and it just killed my confidence when I couldn’t hide it. While my friends braided their thick, natural tresses and ogled at each other’s hair, I thought of excuses to avoid having them touch mine for fear that they would see and judge the artificial coloring or unhealthy thinness. While my brother splashed in puddles in the rain and freely let drops run down his face, I obsessively sheltered my head with hoods and umbrellas. The image of my styled hair getting “messed up” somehow terrified me. It may be an unfamiliar terror for some of you but for me, it meant losing something that gave me confidence, something that defined my femininity.

But hair is just that — a thing.

I came to the realization that I was using it as a crutch and not allowing my identity grow past it. Confidence should never be a matter of how good you look, nor should it be dependent on any other physical feature. This realization was a key turning point for me. So I decided it wouldn’t be enough to just let my hair be natural for awhile. Inevitably, I’d start toying around with it and get annoyed when it didn’t look the way I wanted. No, I needed something drastic, an act to remove all those years of doubt and self-consciousness — a fresh start ... and I got exactly that.

It was a quick cut, not more than 10 or 15 minutes. But when I looked in the mirror, the first thing I noticed was not my hair, but my face. Bold eyebrows that had always been masked by straight, styled bangs. A stubborn, sharper jaw which had always been softened by the layers framing my face. A face that didn’t need luscious locks or voluminous waves to be feminine because it defined femininity its own way.

In the last week, I’ve loved letting people touch my hair and ogle at the fuzzy feeling that they might normally expect on a guy’s head. I’ve loved the liberating feeling of rain and wind against my skin. But most of all, I’ve loved the feeling I get whenever I look in the mirror or see my reflection in a window — it’s a sense of awe at how bold and different I look. But it’s also a feeling of great pride because I did something that proudly tells the world, “I don’t care what you think.”

And funnily enough, as I say those words, I feel more like myself than I’ve ever felt before.