Talk Me Off the Ledge: I Want to Cut My Dreadlocks

Ok so I am feeling like I want to cut my hair. Cut it! It has gotten so long and cumbersome, I almost feel like it is another person I have to carry it around. I'm always flinging it out of my way or tying it up in a bun. I like hair wraps but I'm way too lazy to wrap my hair up all the time. I hang out at Nappturality all the time, and I just LOVE looking at all the albums of women who wear afros and puffs and cornrows. I just have a smidgen of unlocked hair in the front that I can pick out and braid and cornrow, but sometimes that's not enough.

I love the ease of having locks though, I can go weeks without doing anything at all to my hair other than washing it once a week. And when I 'do' it, that usually involves trimming the unlocked hair and styling it, or occassionally curling my locks or doing them up in bantu knots or some other style. and I feel like locks fit me, this is my hairstyle. I feel if I cut them off I would regret it. and I'm releasing the 2nd edition of my book Dread Mama soon, how would it look for me to have a book on dreadlocks and then not even have locks anymore.

Here's a back view of my locks from August 2005, they are about an inch or two longer than this now:

This a length I really liked, this pic is from July 2004. I may just cut them down to this length rather than cut them all off:


New April 2006 pics coming soon!