Final color @ 51 months

Ok, the last color never "grew" on me so I've changed it back to coffee brown; my natural color. My hair has never refused color but for some reason when I attempted to color back to my au naturale, the color did something funny and went to a much lighter color...very odd.  Therefore, I had to double process - which is never good for the hair but I had no other choice.  My hair was looking wicked.  The second color was processed with deep conditioner left on my hair throughout the entire process.  Thankfully, my hair is still in very good condition and I continue to use conditioner on a daily basis for the time being just to make sure it is in good condition.  With that said, I am now done coloring my hair.  It was just entirely too much work due to the length and thickness of my hair.  I also had a lot of shedding anytime I touched it - not good.  So today I say good bye to color forever....pray for me! lol.  I've also noticed that I am in the middle of yet another growth spurt. A few months back I thought the amount of new growth was odd but I put it to the back of my mind but now there is no mistaking it...it's growing like wild flowers again.  My new struggle, since I am not going to color, is going to be to not cut.  It's been too long since I've allowed my hair to get long.  I used to cut, cut, cut.  To stop all of the cutting I would color...crazy vicious cycle.  Now what shall I do since there will be no more color and I am trying to resist the cut?