I’ve been growing my hair out for about 3 months in the hopes of getting dreadlocks. People keep noticing that my hair is longer and ask if I have a plan of what I’m doing. Up to this point in my life I didn’t realize that one needed to have a plan when growing your hair out, but anyways. So each time I tell someone that I’m planning on getting dreads I cringe wondering which of the three responses I’ll get:
1) cool…that sounds awesome.
2) Really?
3) Awh gross those are nasty.
And then for responses 2 and 3 I end up explaining the fact that dreads are not dirty and that they can be very clean and neat and that they even have a Biblical history. As of right now, I’ve got about another month of growing ahead but have already found the place that I believe I’ll go to get my hair dreaded. For me the process of getting dreads is a journey to being okay with doing something that I want to do and understanding that it will not be accepted or condoned by everyone, even those that I care about. I’m hoping it will be freeing to know I can do it and be fine with who I am. I don’t think I’ve ever been obsessed with what people think about me, but I think this will just be another step in being able to live my life and not be controlled by other people. I’ve always believed that if someone can’t get past something about my appearance that they might not like, than they don’t really care about my insides. Now I’m not saying I don’t care about my appearance, anyone could tell you that I take pride in my appearance, but I hate to be judged by my appearance.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my future lately. It’s not been by choice, some people close to me have been really encouraging me to strive to live beyond the moment and learn to also think a little more about the future. Living in the moment and being where I am and really trying to enjoy it is something that I feel I’m actually kind of good at. The future isn’t something I fear or not ever think of, it’s just more of something that I feel like can be a distraction to doing what needs to be done here and now. So my thoughts for the future have started to include seminary. I know that could be surprising because I’ve always teased and called it cemetery because I’ve believed it was where people went to become mindless robots without passion for life. But at this point in life, I actually feel comfortable enough in my own skin to think that going there would be a challenge and offer some of the conversations that I’d really like to have. Now the challenge of figuring out how to get there, I don’t even have my bachelor’s degree. So I’m looking into getting my college transcripts and finding out what I need to do to make that happen and then to where I would like to go for this next step. I really enjoy education and look forward to it, but I’m not sure how I’ll do something like this with my current schedule. This should be interesting.
I have to be honest that I’ve only run twice in the new year. Today I’m blocking out time in my weekly schedule to run 3 times a week and work out 2-3. My great friend Randy was here for the past few days and we had a great time as usual. We took some pictures while we were hanging out and looking at them I totally realized that my lack of running is taking it toll on me. I really enjoy being in shape and I’m determined to get back to it. Found a great website called Run Keeper that works with my iPhone to track my progress as well.
Izzy Rodriguez 