Reason #21: letting go and moving on

One of the things I'm really digging about my reasons for dreadlocks series is the patterns that crop up!  Today's reason is from Dianna, and it's really two, and together they offer something I see a lot of -- which I think is akin to a rite of passage, maybe -- and something new to me, but probably just as common in the world.

Dianna's more mature than I am

First time out, Dianna made what was a big commitment to her:  a full year with dreadlocks.  (Now that I've passed the year mark myself, I wonder if my five-year commitment was biting off more than I can chew.  No . . . but it's still a bit nuts.)  She says it was "an exercise in letting go" of her appearance, so she could "focus on [her] inner beauty" instead.  It actually also "helped me to see my outward natural beauty" after she looked beyond mascara and eyeliner.

After her year was up, Dianna's hair had clumped into some pretty big sections, and her scalp wasn't digging it, so she took 'em out.  Awhile later, she applied that experience to her second set of locks, which are a couple of months older than mine.

This time around, Dianna was specifically looking to mark a transition.  As she told me via Facebook:

My marriage fell apart, my grandmother passed away, and I left behind a masters degree to take to the road. I travel now, and I earn a modest and plain living working various renaissance festivals. Many of us who travel have or have had dreadlocks. I suppose you could say some view them as a rite of passage. For me, perhaps they are just that, and more.

So yeah, I've heard similar stories, and I will probably hear more of both types of reasons in the future.  Now I'm starting to think I should be doing a better job tagging these posts so we can see what types of reasons we've all got.

Feel free to suggest tags in the comments!  Do it generically or, if you're in a super-helpful mood, visit the list of reasons for dreadlocks and suggest them directly on your favorite post!

Reason #20: life transformation

Only her hairdresser knows they're fake

And then there's Donna, who's the first person I've talked to who had fake dreadlocks put into her hair to start things off.

That was the first thing she said, in fact:  "You obviously know that they're fake, right?"  

As it happens, I did not.  Donna's locks are made of synthetic hair, but it's not easy to tell that they're not all her hair if you don't know better.  She's had plenty of people assume that hers are natural.

"I was going more for Matrix than hippie," she said; cybergoth is more her thing.  She's always had lots of colors, ranging from blacks and blondes in the professional world to rainbow hues back in college.  "I thought if I were ever to do dreads, I would put in extensions."

She has hippie friends who call them a travesty, but she just sees her hair as a way to have fun.

For Donna, her hair was a way to signify the major changes in her life.  "I lost my job a year and a half ago, and I had a major transition," she said, which also included losing over a hundred pounds.  "I figured I wanted to have fun, and have fun hair," she said.

"I had this conservative, straight life, and now it's the reverse," she laughed.