so thankful

BEFORE READING: this may or may not make sense, so i apologize if it doesn't.....

the past two weeks i've been really having a hard time with my dreads. they started to really bother me, and the more i thought about it the more i started to hate them. i started to realized that i missed brushing my hair and missed being able to style it. also i hated all the negative attention i started hating the negative attention i was getting from people. my teachers look down upon me, and my friends parents look down on me. it's like my hair was giving people an impression of something i'm not. i started to hate how i looked, so i would wear hats and pull my dreads back. i even started to comb a few out. but then i realized something. i was forgetting something very very important. i was letting people define who i was and i was letting the negativity make me conform back to what i wasn't and what i was trying to stir away from in the first place. i forgot that i loved that i knew who was able to look pass my hair, at my soul, to see who i really was. and then i started to think, well yeah i miss brushing my hair, but i love my dreads more than anything. i miss some of my old friends, and as much as i want to be friends with them i can't. i started relating my dreads and my hair to other things in my life. and i remembered how freeing dreading my hair was. and how much i love the journey of it. and then i started to relate it to a relationship. i'm just having a tough patch. i'm getting thought and i'll make it thought.

to people who are in the first few months, don't give up. it may not seem like it, but you're changing as a person. you are learning and experiencing things that a lot of people haven't gone through. just know dreads are a beautiful thing, and they are a visual of how beautifull your soul is. and to people who have had dreads for years, you are an inspiration. just looking at pictures of really old dreads, makes me happy and makes me want to never get rid of them. it is helping me get through this rough time with my dreads. this site is what has helped me realize so much about my dreads and myself. so i guess what i'm really trying to say with all of this, is thanks to everyone here with your support.

namaste.

updated by @kathryn: 01/13/15 09:18:58PM

Beautiful. I'm so glad you were able to come to this realization on your own. I would have told you the same thing.

I understand that you miss styling your hair, but guess what? you can style locks to. My girlfriend used to have them before she got her job. She called them her toybox. There was so much random junk tied to each lock. little bells, feathers, toys of all kinds. A girl me and Eagle know even had a small barbie doll tied into one of hers. You can do what ever you want with you locks.

If you don't want to go that crazy, you could just get some yarn or hemp or any strings and make a cool wrap for them. There's tons of YT videos to watch on how to do it. Get some Sculpie clay and make you're own custom personalized beads too.

There's no limit to what you can do to style your hair. And if you don't want to do it like that, you could look up so cool pics of styled locks. I like people with really thin locks that french braid them into huge ones. It's up to you. But don't think that because you have locks now, that it's the last style you can have. Get creative

Kathryn, thank you so much for sharing your story. i just found this site today and i needed to read what you had to say. i feel some days like giving up, i feel sometimes like everyone is looking at me funny and some mornings i wake up and wonder why did i ever do this in the first place? however i have felt a real spiritual connection somehow through my dreads since i started them and i have also like you been grateful that i can now distinguish the difference between my true friends and those who simply cant get past my hair. i am only two months along on my journey and i see why you all refer to it as such. it is an amazing experience and is changing me very deeply within myself already. as i am in such an early stage i was concidering taking them out it because of some negative comments i have gotten and even looks from people i dont even know.kind of goes against what i feel inside i should do, but i realize after reading your story that i absolutely cannot let others define who i am, and i need to listen to my inner voice.thank you so much for your story i am going to keep them and continue my dread journey. ps your dreads are beautiful.