The day is finally here. One year ago today, I embarked on this journey that I had no idea where it would take me. It has been another big accomplishment for me in that I did not have initial intentions of locking and I put them in myself. Honestly, I have enjoyed every day and minute of it. I have not had one bad hair day, or “ugly stage” as far as I’m concerned. If others though that..well that’s their problem, not mine. That may sound conceited but coming from a person in the not too distant past who did not have a lot of confidence in the way she looked, this is like the first steps on the moon. These locs represent a phase in my life where a new me is emerging. Building upon the positive of the past, infusing, combining and bringing out the repressed but equally positive parts of my being. I feel that these locs will be with me for a long time to come as they are a manifestation of this long new phase. As I mentioned in the last post, Saturn is transiting my first house, the house of self. The little bit I do know is, that it is the house of your personality, what people see when they first meet you. It’s also what I like to call your steering wheel. Kinda like how you go about handling yo business and are your “glasses” as to how you view the world. The feeling of this process which describes the meaning of Saturn is very much a slow and patient emerging, just like the butterfly pictured at the top of my page. I was fortunate enough to be graced with her presence last year on my back deck. It took some patience on my part and her’s but she finally let me get a good picture with her wings wide open. Ready to take off on the next adventure to see where life takes her.

Do I have any regrets or disappointments? Not really. I’ll admit that I was hoping for at least the same length I started with or a little longer. However, my main concern was that they did not come down so that I could wash my hair as much as I wanted and I got that.
To anyone who might be reading this blog because you are thinking about locking and are starting out with 6+ inches of hair, be fore warned that you may end up after your 1 yr mark with the same length you started with or a bit less. I’ve found this to be consistent amongst other lockers as well. I guess because there is more hair that has to go thorough the condensing process. But what goes up, must come down…eventually.

I even got brave last week and started co-washing. For anyone not familiar with the term that means washing your hair with conditioner only. Conditioners have mild cleaning agents in them which make them good for this purpose while leaving really porous hair like mine soft. Plus I still had some in the house from my loose hair days. Y’all know I hate to waste stuff I’ve paid money for. So far so good. Only problem with that is…even worse H-I-L disease. WOW, I thought my hair was feeling good before, whoa it’s scrumptious now. I don’t twist or twirl the locs, I just keep squeezing them like they’re Charmin. Some of y’all might be to young to remember those Charmin commercials. But they are so soft and fluffy, I can’t help it. Can’t y’all hear my locs hollerin’ “Damn will you PLEASE stop touching me”. lol All in all, I never thought I’d be this much in love with my locs.