I’ve always worn my hair in the same way. Down or up secured with a clip to make sure it’s not flat on the top. Wearing it in a simple pony or scraped back looks horrendous on me. Or thats what I’ve always told myself. Until one day last week, I was wearing my hair in this ‘horrendous’ way at home when no one can see me except my flatmates and well, Kath said, ‘I love your hair like this’. Six little words that shifted something.

You see, my thing is my hair, has been in the past, almost everyone I meet comments on it. More than one hairdresser suggesting I should be a ‘hairfluencer’, not joking, but possibly bragging a little bit. Anyway it became a security blanket of sorts. The one with the curly hair. I grew it so long I could hide behind it if I needed. I can wrap it round my neck for warmth if I leave the house without a scarf, can pull it over my face in the girl from The Ring kind of way if I run into an ex at the corner-shop in my sweats. My thing. And it can be dangerous to have ‘things’ I’ve come to realise. To cling so desperately to an identity. Become an identity. When we are constantly changing, our thoughts, our lives, our outer bodies, our environments.

One Saturday evening in early December I didn’t have the energy to wash my hair. Nowadays with the constant flaring of my wrist, it can be quite an ordeal to pull the tangle teaser through the dreads collecting at the nape of my neck (thanks to scarf wearing & regular saunas my hair isn’t living its best life at the moment). So instead I put it in a low pony, a small collection of curls slipping from the scrunchies grasp and framing my face like ivy creeping round the door of a house. Red lipstick, brown silky scrunchie. Flat on top (gasp). And I looked in the mirror and felt great. Since then I’ve worn it like that every single day. In a style I would NEVER have been seen in. For literal years. In the last two weeks I’ve been to parties, to work, to brunch, to the cornershop with no worries if I’ll run into said ex. Even perhaps hoped I would - look how cute I look with this new hairstyle I would never have let you see me in, even in the mornings. Yes I’m still talking about hair but I promise I have some kind of point.

It got me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves, the ones we are so sure of until one day it’s just. not. that. There’s a change, an unlocking, unravelling, the old drops away like that first day of proper heat in May when you instantly forget the ice of winter.

There are many stories I’ve told myself about myself. Much more important and bigger ones other than I only suit my hair worn two ways. One of these bigger more important stories was smashed earlier this year when I found out that the rheumatoid arthritis I’ve been diagnosed with over a decade ago had progressed and damaged some bones in my wrist. I always thought, always told myself it wouldn’t get to that. I’d eat all the right things, swim, exercise regularly, keep my soil watered, my leaves bushy. I’d seen pictures of what RA could do to joints but I was sure. Not me.

Stories have changed in what seemed like a click of the fingers. Many years ago I was seeing a sex therapist for a short amount of time through the NHS, I was sure I had something ‘wrong’ with me. Some kind of trauma I was still holding despite all the (slightly crazed) yoga, ecstatic dance and transformational breath-work I was doing. I was desperate to change this narrative, fixated on the minuscule details of it. Then one day, someone came into my life and it just wasn’t like that anymore. Instantly different. I tried to keep seeing the sex therapist but it didn’t make sense anymore, I just kept thinking, the weepy story I told you only last week couldn’t feel further away from who I am now.

Another story I’ve told is that I am disorganised and bad at admin. That it’s my worst enemy. Yet I have a freelancer job that requires me to do weekly invoices, my own taxes every year, know where I’m meant to be everyday with over 7 different classes & a variety of private clients, keep on top of marking & do my own marketing. Writing that down just helped me let that story fall away.

When I found myself pregnant in my mid twenties, having always wanted to be a mother, I was devastated to find that it was a full body no. I was shocked at my conviction, tried to fight against it but I simply couldn’t. The circumstance I found myself in, the person I would have been tied to for the rest of my life, for whatever reason, it was a strong, hard NO and I just couldn’t ignore my instinct. I’d always thought if that moment were to happen, I could never, would never. So that story fell away too.

As we come to the end of the year I invite you to think about your own stories. What stories do you tell yourself about yourself? What stories do you tell others about yourself? Are they true? Do they make you feel safe, or small, or aid you in avoiding the uncomfortability of stepping into something new? Can you let some of them fall away and make way for a new story to unfold…

It has been a year of stories. Telling stories, reading stories, letting go of stories, allowing new ones to form while others fell away. Stories have kept me going, have freed me, have kept me in a box, stopped me from progressing in the way I know I could, allowed me to stay within my safe confines. And most importantly kept me from wearing a truly stunning simple hairstyle that actually I unapologetically, wholly, fully, completely rock. Well to that story at least, I say SO LONG.