So this happened today…I cut (with Reese’s help of course) my dreads!

After nearly four years of growing them, I finally decided they had to go. I had been thinking about cutting them off and on for the last year, but all those insecurities that can come with having short hair kept holding me back.

Those feelings are ironic for a couple of reasons. Reason #1: Six years ago this weekend (Feb. 17 to be exact), I did this very thing. I chopped off my shoulder length relaxed tresses and started my natural hair journey. And I must say, it’s as liberating today as it was then. Reason #2: It’s just hair. If/when I decide to grow it back, I will.

But right now I’m on a mission. You see I’ve always had this obsession with having long hair. It’s the reason I didn’t go with my first instinct nearly four years ago to cut the natural hair I’d been growing successfully for 2.5 years. It’s part of the reason I decided to loc my hair though I said I never would.

The decision to cut my hair flies in the face of that obsession and that’s exactly why I decided to do it. It’s obsession driven by fear and unfounded fear at that. I’m big on confronting some fears, particularly those that I have complete control over. That’

s why in addition to the hair cut, I plan to rock my hair this short, or shorter for at least a year. That means no obsessing over growing it out, or not doing something to it because it might hurt length retention. Cut and color, here I come.

After Reese finished snipping the last lock, she said I was fearless. I’m not, but I want to be. I’m not fearless, at least not in enough moments of my life, but what I do know for sure is that a Ricks with a made up mind is a force to be reckoned with.

I don’t ever want to be so attached to something that matters so little out of fear. Fear that what I’m doing won’t be accepted by others, or fear that letting go will be so life altering that I can’t recover.

— Ricks