How to Feel Lighter

I just chopped by hair. More accurately, a genius named Aki just chopped my hair. And I was scared to do it because my hair had gotten so so long, but I went for it. Do it, I told him. And he did. We both smiled.

Change is good. It's important to realize this, and remember it. I think it's so easy to get used to things, to grow attached to the status quo, to tell ourselves stories about how everything is the way it is, and perhaps should be. But the reality is that it is often up to us. To decide. To take a risk. To do what we can to feel lighter.

I've been thinking a lot about what my lovely friend Laura Munson said last week. About how it is downright foolish to hinge our personal happiness on things that fall outside our control. I keep thinking about how fundamentally true this is. And yet it is hard to avoid doing this, isn't it? It takes discipline to narrow our focus, to train our eyes and hearts and minds on those things we can do, and affect. It is so easy to slip, to feel like we can change the world and other people, that we can play architect and build the Life we want with some kind of precision, that we can play puppeteer and have the characters in our scenes move just so. We can't.

What we can do is think thoughts. And ask questions. And dream dreams.

And cut our hair.

I cut my hair because it is almost summer. Because it had been forever and the ends were getting split and fried. I cut my hair because I wanted a change. Because I wanted to feel lighter. And here's the thing: I do. I feel lighter. Because, quite literally, I said goodbye to probably a foot of my hair, but also because I did something for me, something I could do, something that was totally, wonderfully within my control.

I sit here. In a Starbucks in the morass of midtown. My phone is charging. And so, in a way, am I. I am the blond girl sitting on a radiator by the shelf display of fancy teas. I am the girl squinting into a little screen. I am the girl with the new, happy bob. I sit here, awash in anonymity, thankful for this sunny Tuesday, and the chance I have in this moment to write these words. I could be irritated by the cacophonous construction outside, the fierce sound of a nearby drill, but I am not. I choose not to be.

I feel lighter. Already. Again.

{Speaking of lighter, I am now off to get blonded. Wading in the shallow end today and it feels kind of good...}

What hairstyle are you sporting these days? Are you afraid of change or do you embrace it? What do you do to feel lighter?