There are moments in life that divide everything into “before” and “after”—invisible fault lines that crack open without warning, splitting your world into what was and what can never be again. For me, that moment came at 7:43 AM on a Tuesday morning in our small bathroom, under the unflattering fluorescent light that had witnessed three years of our morning routines. It came with the mechanical buzz of an electric razor and the sound of my own hair hitting the tile floor like fallen leaves.

The Morning That Changed Everything

The day started like any other. I had woken up to the familiar weight of my hair fanned across the pillow—long, chestnut brown waves that had taken me five years to grow from a pixie cut I’d regretted almost immediately. My hair was one of the few things about my appearance that I genuinely loved, something I took pride in maintaining and styling, a part of my identity that felt authentically mine.