Every Color of the Rainbow: Dreaded Dread-Locks

I never thought I'd see the day when I would have such insecurity of mind, and wind up with a head full of dread locks. But here I am, on the 18th of July 2012, staring at my horrifying self image- WITH DREADLOCKS! Mind you, not one ounce of this predicament came by my own consent, it was forced upon me by none other than mother nature herself. Here's how this whole unreal nightmare came about.

After 7 weeks of the laid-back maintenance of a head-full of braids (77 to be exact), It came time to take the things out. I started working on it Tuesday night, and by Friday morning I had 19 left to take out. After jumping into the lake, canoeing, swimming and running around all morning, I had my last braids taken out with the help of Angela, Carolyn, Courtney and Laura. It felt so good to have them out!!! -EXCEPT there was a slight problem: My hair was 2 strings of tangles.

I wasn't in the least bit concerned, until I washed my hair in the lake an hour later. I realized that the handfuls of conditioner I had put in my hair wasn't that helpful. So, I thought I'd just upgrade to the shower in the cottage instead of the lake-bath. To my horror, there was very little difference after I finished with the cottage shower!

For 2 hours I worked at the tangles. I had to do some scrambling to disguise the knots when we went out to the Blodgett's for supper. When I got home that night, I was starting to get worked up. With some wise counselling from not only mom and Angela, but Dad and David as well, they loaded up my tangles with conditioners, oils and any other lubricants we could get our hands on, wrapped it up, and went to bed.

After a prayerful night, I woke up in the morning to find my hair about the same as the night before. After breakfast, Angela and mom went straight to work with brushes, combs, spray water, conditioner and the like. At lunch time, I was pretty much a wreck- emotionally and not to mention in appearance. I tried showering again to wet my hair. It made it even worse. We went down to the lake, and I sat in the water while Angela and mom kept working. After more hours passed, Angela made up a hot olive oil in water with salt (to try and soften the HARD lake water) and I soaked my hair in that for a while. In the end, I couldn't even look at myself without bursting into tears. So here I am now, wishing I could tell you everything is fine now- but frankly I look like a freak! Anyways, now all I can do is laugh about it and PRAY that when I get home to PEI tomorrow evening, our soft water will work its magic, and my hair will be back to its usual self! So this is just something you can add to your prayer list if you feel exercised… I'll let you know how it turns out!