This is day three (or four, I already don't remember). I'm going 100% natural. Is it already a little hard? Yes. But that's part of it.

Hard to not hold myself prisoner in front of the mirror. Hard to not ask stupid, self-deprecating questions. Hard to not worry about what others think. Hard to not bust out the brushes and wax and freezing sprays, and just arm myself with my familiar, tried-and-true crest. Hard, too, to not give to my initial desire to use a starter method, so at least I can say, "Look, see, I'm starting dreads."

But letting one's hair lock is exactly that: letting. Allowing. It is hardly just another hair style. I do believe it is a life style, as many others have said; to quote another: "a stance we take in relation to life." An embodiment of simplicity, real beauty, real freedom, and letting what is flourish, within the larger embodiment of these things in all aspects of one's life. This is not to say that dreadlocks make or break anything; a person can live a fine example of these things without them. But dreads do seem a sort of natural occurrence in many who have chosen to shift.

And that is what I'm after. A genuine shift. This is just one aspect of a greater healing process that I'm in, that I'm committing to, as difficult as it is.

You don't really start dreads; it's more like you stop a lot of other stuff.

Do I wish that, right now, I had long gorgeous gnarly locks, rather than this six inches of uncombed curly mop on my head? Of course. But if I had them right now, I wouldn't have much...