I have been a long-time admirer of dreadlocks. I don't know that I paid much attention to them in regards to myself, but I certainly took notice. My hair was chemically relaxed when I was 9 or ten years old. My hair was long and full and incredibly thick. I was too young to really have much of an opinion about my hair since I wasn't doing it myself, but I always felt prettiest when I wore my hair styled curly.

I thought about getting dreadlocks before I even thought about getting rid of the chemical. There was a girl at the college I went to that I admired so much. She seemed very strong and sure of herself, and she had beautiful locs that she would wear every kind of way. Dreadlocks became a sort of symbol of strength and confidence for me.

Fast forward a couple years and I just decided to stop getting relaxers. I didn't like going to the salon, I didn't really have money for it, and I didn't understand why I kept burning my hair straight when it was naturally curly and I liked my hair curly. So after about 2 months or so of no relaxers I got impatient to see my own hair and cut it all down to the new growth. I loved it!

There were a few setbacks and resets between then and now, but I have finally come back to letting my hair lock. I did want help with the sectioning and I just do not have the patience to do my whole head, so I went to the salon one last time to get comb coils. I got the whole spiel about tying my hair up in a satin scarf at night, not washing or really messing with it for FOUR weeks when I was supposed to come back to the salon for "maintenance". I thanked the stylist, paid my $100, left her a tip, and sped to work. I was disappointed with the results because they were so close to my head and the aloe vera gel she used made my hair really crunchy feeling. But I knew eventually that would go away.

I came back to this site after lurking around for a while and finally joined. I read and read, and decided that I was not going to go back to the salon, I was not going to sleep with a satin scarf on (it only made my coils stick out in weird directions from being tied up all night, and I was not going to retwist (though it's really hard for me to keep my hands out of my head; i just gently finger my coils).

I am already feeling better about my journey. My coils have gotten fuzzy (I was looking forward to it) and some of my ends are already puffing and budding. I wish I could fast forward the length, but I know I have many many years ahead to watch them develop and grow. It feels so good to just let go and let be.