As of this morning I don't know if it a rant or a rave, but for three and a half days last week I combed out all my eight year old dreadlocks! I had been kind of tired of them for a long while, and had stopped caring for them like I used to; they have been looking pretty ratty for a while and not very attractive as I am going pretty grey these days. I hadn't "planned on" doing this particularly, but one evening last week as we were sitting down to stream our show I was idly picking at the end of one dreadlock and it started unraveling fairly easily. So I started on another and then I couldn't stop for three days!
It was a very difficult process - each lock took between 30 minutes to an hour to unravel all the way to the scalp! Plus piles and piles of old hair and old lint that had been trapped within the lock! I finally finished yesterday morning and took a blessed hot shower where I used a ton of shampoo and conditioner. My hair is still fairly long (a little past my shoulders, and it actually decided to curl up as it was drying! I had no idea if it would do that out here in the desert without the Michigan humidity like I was used to.
So now it is back to having to do daily haircare, which I am not used to. I am going to have to buy a wide-toothed hairbrush, and curling conditioner to keep it looking decent on a day-to-day basis and to prevent natural dreadlocks occurring during the night.
Even though I had been thinking about a hairstyle change for a long time, I didn't want to go the route of actually chopping off all my hair and being practically bald and having to grow it out. Plus, I HATE having to blow-dry and style (which I have to do when I have short hair, otherwise I look like bozo). This way at least I have some options going forward. I do need to get a professional trim because the ends of my hair are pretty dry and damaged.
So, I guess I'm raving because I actually went through with it and it's nice to know I still have my curly hair! I'm just going to have to get used to actually caring for it on a daily basis, unlike having dreadlocks which are pretty darn care-free!
