Cassie Jean Wells
3 min readMay 20, 2020

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OYM Day 32: I cut off my hair

When I was quite young, I made the mistake of wanting a shag haircut. I think I had seen a picture of Tiffani Amber Thiessen on the cover of a magazine and, of course, I wanted to look like she did. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, but my mom still took us to a nice salon to get our hair cut. She was good friends with a stylist there, so I think we got a deal. The salon was downtown and I can’t remember ever seeing any other kids in there. It had fancy pictures hung up on the walls and a little lofted sitting area where you could get water or coffee. It was nice. I guess that’s why I felt anything was possible in there… like getting a haircut that would make me look like a girl from 90210.

It was a bad decision. I looked like a little boy. I remember running my fingers up and down the short, buzzed hairs on the back of my head. This is what it feels like to be a boy, I thought. It would take years for my hair to grow back. And when I got impatient, I would get it cut slightly different but slightly shorter, and regret it all over again. A classic, repetitive case of over correcting a bad haircut.

It wasn’t until high school that I broke the cycle and just let that shit grow. I have had long hair since I was a sophomore. I did the math just now. I’ve had the same hairstyle for nearly 20 years. Jesus.

I started feeling like one of those people that gets dragged onto a reality TV show for a makeover. And they’re like, “Me? A makeover?!” And it turns out they were in a bad car accident or their husband left them and they were stuck in how they looked at the time of that trauma…Like they’re holding on to a time that has clearly passed. I can’t pinpoint what my trauma would be exactly, besides the shag haircuts, but I kept thinking pretty soon my phone would ring and it’d be Jenny Jones.

For so long I have been known for my hair. It’s thick and curls easily and does what it wants. My friends called it my “Victoria’s Secret” hair. I think it made me more approachable, but not in a good way. I would get asked for directions or be told to smile or sent drinks by people that could have been my dad. Truly, I think it was the hair.

It’s not like I was waiting to cut it off. It just never really crossed my mind. I always thought I’d do it one day, but that day was in the future. And then 20 years flew by…and there I sat, with what felt like a dead animal curled up on top of my head.

“Are you sure?” My friends and family hesitated when I showed them a picture of someone that was not Tiffani Amber with a very severe, a-line bob. But I was sure as shit. As the stylist reminded me she was cutting off 12 inches of hair, I didn’t even flinch. Instead I smiled and closed my eyes.

Hair is power. And I hate that that’s true. I wish it weren’t. And I think that’s why I kept it. But I know that power is an illusion and I don’t need it to be happy. Nobody needs it, just egos. And I’ve learned from people close to me that everything is temporary. Even hair. So, fuck it.

So, here I am. I feel so free! I feel like I can finally see myself. I don’t know why I waited so long to part ways with something that felt like a giant, dated helmet. A helmet that required so much shampoo!

The short hair really brings out my smirk, no?

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Cassie Jean Wells

35/F/Las Vegas — Not a dutch milkmaid as picture may suggest. Question? Ask me anything. Info@oymandtrustme.com