Hair’s the Deal

So, I’ve had dreadlocks since 2010 and now they’re down to my ass. I waited until after my mom died before I started them. I mourned her death for a year before I chose to do it since I knew she would’ve been mortified.

The few times I had dreds before, she gave me such shit about it. I don’t even want to go into it, but I wanted them for a long time and never kept them for more than a year, maybe two. Now they are so long, they’ve become problematic. I sit on them all the time. I’m hot. They itch. It’s hard to put them up. They take forever to wash and dry, and maybe I’m just tired of them.

For almost a year, I’ve been dreaming of having plain old hair again. The reason I haven’t are two-fold. One, it feels like it’s the only “cool” thing about me because I’m fat right now. Without the dreads, I’d just be a typical “fat person.” I also thought I’d have to shave my head and then I’d really look awful.

My dreads are all different lengths, and a couple of days ago, I decided to cut my longest one off–as short as my longest non-dreaded hairs (about fourteen inches). Then I wanted to see if I could comb it out. It took half the day, but I did it. Most of the hair is dead, of course, so I had a pile the size of a small kitten. I then combed out a very thin one, and that only took about an hour and a half, but it was very thin. Most of my dreads are pretty thick.

It made me wonder if I should go all the way with it. I have about forty dreads, but that’s not counting the ones that branch off. Then it would be more like fifty. However, most of the ones that branch off do so around the fourteen-inch mark (luckily). In the last couple of days, I’ve combed out six dreads. If I decide to keep doing this, it will take me about a month to have enough hair to cut into a short-ish hairstyle like I used to wear when I was a youngin’ like this:

That is, if I keep doing it. I seem to be doing it while I’m undecided. Maybe I have decided and I’m just not admitting it to myself. All I know is that I better lose some weight, fast or I’m definitely not going to look anything like I do in these pictures.

4 thoughts on “Hair’s the Deal

  1. Hannah August 15, 2020 / 10:30 am

    Your hair could be made out of bananas and you’d still be beautiful.

  2. Carol Es August 16, 2020 / 8:15 am

    You are too kind, but I think the bananas would eventually get smooshy and attract flies.

    • Hannah August 16, 2020 / 8:17 am

      Flies wouldn’t dare touch your banana hair! If they did I’d vacuum them up.

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