Five months ago, I shaved my head. Or rather, my husband mostly shaved it and then I decided the resulting look wasn’t quite right so I took the guard off of the razor and finished the job.

I can’t actually remember when the idea first occurred to me but I do know where I was. I was in the bath, shaving my legs and thinking about how frustrated I was with my hair when I was suddenly tempted to shave my head when I was done with my legs. Thankfully I realized that using a Venus to shave my head would be a very bad idea so I never followed through with it.

A few years later, I had hit the wall again with my hair and offhandedly told my husband that I was tempted to shave it. He said that as long as he was the one to do it, he was fine with it. I’ve been buzzing his hair for almost the entire length of our marriage so we always have a razor in the house. He said he just didn’t want to come home to find me with a shaved head and have no warning or play no part in it.

A few more years went by after that response and I decided the time was soon. Something about approaching my mid thirties and just not caring what people thought of me. I dress how I want, sometimes in ridiculously paired patterns and colours and a few months before I got rid of all my hair, I dyed it green. Because hey, it’s just hair.

I didn’t do it for charity or to support a friend who was losing their hair. Those are great reasons to shave your head if you feel led to them, but in this case, I was just putting my foot down and declaring that this was something I wanted to do and therefore I was going to do it.

For the record, my kids hated it. Only my then three year old said it was “a cool haircut.” I got a few weird looks and some shocked responses but I was also applauded by some very surprising people. The day I did it, we went out to my brother-in-law’s parents’ property and his aunt, a pretty traditional and conservative woman in her sixties, said she really liked it and was impressed that I was brave enough to do it.

When it comes down to it, I don’t want to be a woman in her sixties wishing I had done these things when I was young and brave. I may not be going out and getting a tattoo anytime soon (although you never know) but shaving my head has certainly made me see that what you wear, how you do your hair, whether you wear makeup or not doesn’t really matter. Not in the long run.

In all honesty, the grow out process has been frustrating at times. Some people assumed it was my intention to keep it shaved or wear it short from now on, but I do look forward to having long hair again. And this process has shown me what haircuts I can totally get away with even though I shouldn’t be able to according to those ridiculous beauty magazine articles about face and body shape and ideal hairstyles. I never would have imagined I could pull of a pixie cut but it turns out I totally can.