More than two years ago, during my first semester in Maastricht, I went to the hairdresser. The result was… embarrassing. It wasn't bad. I just looked like a 40-year-old in the body of an 18-year-old. Which, again, isn't bad. It's just not the approach to my first year I had in mind.
Scarred, I didn’t go back to the hairdresser for months. After a year, I decided to grow my hair so long that I could donate it. This had two advantages: firstly, I could tick something off my bucket list, and secondly, I wouldn’t have to get my hair cut for a very long time. It was truly a win-win situation where I won twice.
This decision led up to last Saturday: the day I decided that the ultimate day had finally come. This ultimate day was not a neatly picked-out date with the perfect star constellation but instead the day that one of my friends said: "Hey, I'm leaving next Friday. If you still want that haircut, we have to do it now!" It's not like she isn't coming back in two weeks, by the way, but by then I was already committed to the idea of walking around with open hair and feeling the sun on my neck.
And just like that, we cleared my friend's room, put a single chair in the middle of it, and started cutting. Part of my hair ended up as one braid in a bowl (which, on that note, I am still staring at and should finally post) and the rest floated to the floor like snowflakes. Without a mirror in sight, I just had to hope that the shortest hair I've ever had looks as good on me as hoped. And that my friend can cut hair, she didn't have as many credentials as one would hope.
After one hour, everything was done. My hair was near-gone. And the short hair? It only took me three hours to get used to it. Out for a celebratory ice-cream, I decided to send my family a subtle picture of my new haircut. They didn’t notice.
Jesler van Houdt