Welcome to my Ted Talk. Today I will be discussing something that is near and dear to my heart. Dreadlocks.
If you don’t know me, I am one of the most impulsive people, especially with things that have to do with my hair. Before the race, I bleached my hair, colored it pink, purple, and black underneath. Now that I think about it, I dyed my whole head of hair a slight pinkish color. One other thing. I have had 3 ½ sets of dreadlocks, and my current set I have had for six whole months, which is the longest I have ever had a hairstyle before.
My dreads have taught me to be patient. You see, when you begin a set of dreadlocks, they’re not really “dreadlocks” yet. They are just kind of sections of hair that are told where to go and they chill with their neighbors for a while before they start tangling and forming more mature dreads.
When you get to a certain point in your “dreadlock journey,” dreadlocks, or your baby dreads start forming these loops and they start to shrink. I wish I had good pictures to show it, but believe me, I have lost some good length because of my dreads shrinking. Patience is truly the name of the game because all I want is for my dreadlocks to look either like the ones that are extensions which are typically made from artificial hair and don’t need to change, or the dreads that are years and years down their dreadlock road.
I think this is what God is showing me through my hair, something that I have always seen as one of the most exciting ways to express my personality and uniqueness. God is showing me how much His timing is everything. With dreads, there is no other way to speed up the dread process. You just have to be patient and have perseverance. You have to have faith that your hair is going to look really awesome down the road a couple of years. Same with God. You have to have perseverance and faith that what He has planned for you is going to work out.
Also, I struggle with seeing other people’s dreadlocks and wanting mine to either be as long as theirs or be as neat as another people. What I have had to realize though is that my dreadlocks are going to look like my own dreadlocks. I won’t be able to make mine look like some other set of dreads because I have a different journey and my hair matures or gets tighter differently.
Honestly, God has been teaching me a ton about His timing and about being faithful to the journey. I am quicker to give up on something if I am not good at it or if I don’t get something right away, but I am coming to the realization that what God has for me is going to be a million times better and more satisfying than anything I can come up with on my own. I know this because I would normally just brush out my dreads by now. I have only been keeping them because I bet someone that I could keep them the entire length of the race. Who knew they would teach me lessons about my walk with God? Not I.
Here’s to five and a half more months of having my dreads and learning more through my hair about God. Also, I’m posting this along with pictures of my dreads on both my Facebook and Instagram because posting this with my phone and including pictures is time consuming and difficult and I don’t have the patience (as mentioned before).
Thank you for supporting me, and the next post will be a really cool one. Stay tuned my dudes.
-Jo
