Five Months into Dreading Already? Almost Six?

I have to say, this is the longest I've really committed to anything!  Five months of one hair style seems like an eternity to me.  I can't seem to stick with one look to save my life.  One day I'm feeling grunge.  The next day I'm feeling like a hippie.  Two days later it's all-American jeans and a tee-shirt.  Keeping to dreads was expected to be a huge challenge for me.  I expected it to be work, a hassle, and to get bored with it, to be honest.  Most people I've known with dreads don't even last out the year.  They decide they don't like the look, so they comb them out.  Of course, dreads are a journey and a few months is hardly enough time to tell what they'll be like.  I knew going into this it would be a long process.  I was hoping I could last out a year so I could at least see them mature.

The first few months were rough.  I have to admit, I'd had tons of thoughts of combing them out.  I kind of missed having normal hair.  Dreading the bangs seemed to help as it got them out of my face so I could see, but I lost an element of what I was going for.  I liked my bangs, and I was tempted to comb them out until recently.  This whole process was just taking too long, and I was ready to give up on them.  Even with the bangs dreaded back, I was starting to think they were just never going to be what I wanted.  They were never going to be anything but a messy, chaotic, disastrous mess.

Well, five months have gone by in a blink.  I didn't even realize I completely forgot to post a five month update and it's almost been six months!  My dreads look fantastic, at least for being baby dreads.  They're developing nicely.  They're starting to build up a nice locked up portion, which is exactly what I want to see!  If they keep up like this I'll be proud to be the owner of lovely dreadlocks before the year is out.  I'm not going to hold my breath on that quick of a result, but I'm seeing progress in a very quick way.  I'm actually impressed with the way my dreads are turning so quickly.

I'm sure there's going to be some more shrinking to be done.  My dreads aren't as tight and hard packed as I was given the impression they should be and I know that's a factor in shrinking.  I've had to attack them with a crochet hook this morning so I could pull in all the wispy bits.  When I was done with that I experimented with palm rolling a few.  I'm not sure they had any real effect, but I guess it was worth the try.  There's only one way to find out what the results will be, and that's to try it.  If palm rolling makes them look better, then great. If not, well, I at least took the time to break up any that were growing together.  On top of that, I'm not palm rolling all of them, so I guess one could say I'm just doing an experiment.  It's really more finger rolling too.  there's not enough to hold in the palms of my hand and roll!

I'm not ready to say I'm satisfied with my dreads yet.  They still annoy me most days when they're down.  I'm not quite sold on the look of my short, scrappy dreads.  Most days I wear them up or in a scarf.  This has a two fold benefit.  First, I can keep myself from messing with my dreads.  I've heard the more you leave them alone, the better they develop, so I'm going for that.  Second, my dreads just look a lot better when they're up.  I've gotten a lot of criticism on my dreads, and I can honestly say I'm tired of it.  Yes, I know they look crazy and out of control.  That's because they are.  They're going through the crazy, wild phase and they're pretty short.  It's going to take some time to tame them down and make them look "respectable".  Until then, I'm only letting them loose on a good day, like today.

I have to say, I'm so happy I decided to do this.  There's nothing like dreads, and I adore them.  The more they develop, the more I love them. I can't wait until I can have some beautiful, long dreads like some of the ones I've seen!  It takes time, but I'll get there.  I just have to keep exercising good patience.