Over the holiday break I took a little time to do a little more cleaning out of stuff. It’s been a while since I tackled a clean out, and it’s something I have to be in the mood to do. If I’m feeling even the littlest bit sentimental, it’s pointless, because I won’t be able to let anything go. With the influx of Christmas stuff, I was definitely primed to part with some relics.

I’d stashed a few boxes full of high school and college memorabilia in a hall closet after I’d dumped them out of my bedroom closet. I knew there was very little of importance in there, but I also knew that I would want to take one last trip down memory lane before tossing any of it, so it was the perfect chore for the holiday break.

Underneath all the dusty old trophies and certificates of participation (toss!), and the hundreds of pictures of all my old pets (keep), I found my high school yearbooks, all four of them filed neatly in chronological order. As I cracked open my freshman year, I wasn’t surprised to find about five pictures of me throughout the whole book: the obligatory class photo, member of the softball team, and then a few other group shots of the activities I participated in.

Since there wasn’t much to see in the way of content, I started reading through the comments my classmates had written throughout the book.

With only a few notable exceptions (my closest friends), every passage was addressed to “the girl with really long hair.” It is easy to see now how, in our relatively small class of about 30 kids, I was most easily identified by my hair. We were still getting to know each other, and I was “the girl with the long hair.”

It was the ’80s and perms and poufy bangs were all the rage. Everyone had long hair, it was just curled up and teased out with gallons of Aqua Net. While I had attempted a perm in between seventh and eighth grade, it ended relatively badly. My hours spent in the swimming pool would turn any hair spray into goo and it was just easier to leave my hair alone or pull it into a braid or a ponytail than to drag a jug of hair spray with me everywhere.

My waist length hair survived until a year or two after college. After a year of shoving it up under a ski hat all day and then under a swim cap all night, it was showing signs of wear and tear. Somewhere in my mid-20s, my hair started only going halfway down my back. By the time I hit my 30s, it was regularly shoulder length, although I did let it grow a little longer for a special occasion like my wedding.

Occasionally, I would get a little crazy and have it cut just below my chin. I almost always regretted it and let it grow back down to my shoulders as quickly as possible. From there, I could still pull it up into a pony and still give off the vibe of being “the girl with the really long hair.”

Then, kids happened. For a time, I didn’t worry about my hair at all. It spent almost all its time pulled up into a clip or scrunchie bun and forgotten about. When the grays started coming in fast and furious, I did become more concerned about the color of it, particularly when I was referred to as E’s grandmother on more than one occasion.

So, why did all these references to the girl with the long hair hit me so hard? Call it quarantine crazy, but the first time I was able to get a haircut after the spring shut down, I said, “cut it all off!”

My stylist, who has been suffering me for at least 20 years now, got a little sparkle in her eye and said, “really!?” Knowing my somewhat lackadaisical approach to hair care, she did caution me that having it short would require a few more visits than I was currently used to scheduling.

“Go for it!” I said, figuring that if I hated it and wanted to go through an awkward grow-out stage, I wouldn’t be going anywhere important for a few months.

Turns out that I’m actually a little sad I have nowhere to go, because I am loving being the “short-haired girl.” I’m heading into my sixth month of short hair, so maybe it’s still a bit of a novelty, but other than the severe bed head that I wake up with every morning, I can’t find one negative thing about short hair. Blow drying my hair takes about three minutes. I’ve significantly cut down on the amount of shampoo and conditioner I use. And, if I do happen to have a bad hair day, it’s quickly remedied with a headband or a bandanna.

One of the fun aspects of the past few months has been venturing out into public a few times. Between my haircut and my mask, I’ve enjoyed a small amount of anonymity that I’ve never had before in my small town. It’s been fun to watch longtime acquaintances walk right past me and not recognize me. I’ve even caught my kids looking right past me at times when they’d forgotten about my new ’do.

The only low spot came the first time E saw me after I’d gotten it cut.

“We’re not twinsies anymore,” she frowned. I was quick to point out that we still had the same brown eyes, the same bumpy nose and same hair color. Other than the length of our hair, she was still very much my mini-me.

Even though she agreed with me, she did ask if maybe she could get her hair cut a little shorter next time she went for a trim. While I’m always up for letting her express her individuality, I knew she’d be sorry to see her long hair go. After all, someone else has to carry on the title of “the girl with the really long hair” now that I’ve given it up.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.