Where do the lonely hearts umm bloggers go?

I was going to post a mini pity party because so many of the women I used to stalk for their hair and just generally happy personas are no longer blogging or doing so very infrequently.  Others are still blogging but are more of a business now than anything else.  I spent about 20 minutes cleaning up my blog feed and adding a couple new folks to groups.  I wanted to be sad but I can't really.  Life happens and when it does there are about 18 million things more important than documenting your hair growth.  I am instead choosing to be grateful that they were around when I was making decisions about hair and being supportive of my journey while they continued on their own.  Trying to map out what it means to have healthy hair solo would have been a train wreck for me.  Those women, that community, helped me do a better job of nurturing my hair, asking questions of stylists and were generally just good folks to digitally be around.  And I definitely can't throw stones.  As of this post I'm almost at the total of the last two years combined (24 this year, 26 total the last two years).  I abandoned them well before they left me.  We all start with vim and vigor and free flowing thoughts and keeping anything going indefinitely is unlikely.  Especially when we get bored.  My hair is exciting to me again so you're going to hear way more from me than you want to for a while.  Buckle up buttercup.

Oh and while my hair friends are taking a break or on hiatus, my food friends are crushing it.  The next time I'm bored for dinner I gotta remember to come back and check things out and maybe get an instant pot.

The Year of Many Changes

I have been a busy girl.  I've gone from planning a graduate program to nearly being done with the first semester of a graduate program--five more to go.  I've gotten another 20 ish students to conferences.  I've gone from planning a study abroad course to being four months away from heading out on said trip and have been fundraising my ass off well figuratively not literally cause my butt needs to go to the gym.  And while all the work stuff is good, the personal stuff is good too.  Earlier in the year I planned on getting Lasik cause I was tired of my glasses costing a tiny fortune and if I could I would like to opt for just waking up and seeing clearly with no assistance.  Recovery time was factored in and July seemed like the best option but mom was ill so I stashed that idea.

Old-Fashioned Hair Talk

hey guys,

I mean to write this last night because I was noticing something in terms of loc journeys.  People seem to be great about documenting that first year of growth and change and what it is like to go from mostly loose natural hair to mostly cultivated locs.  But after that year the gaps widen or the bloggers/vloggers just vanish.  I think the same thing has happened with some of the natural hair bloggers I used to stalk as well.  I mean life happens and we redirect our energy elsewhere so I get it but it made me sad. These folks become part of my mental extended family with whom I can vent about this one thing with and maybe that's the issue.  We only have that one thing in common so when life happens there's nothing to share or feel like there's a community to lean on.

Work friends are fascinated with my hair change BUT they can't really walk me through it as I am the only person at work with locs right now.  Someone at work wants to get locs but feels she's at least a decade away from that.  Now mind you I can't knock her because I only finally went for it about 20 years after I initially thought I would get them.  That was mostly because I didn't want to look exactly like my mentor more than I already did but now I'll be the one with the gray locs while color has not abandoned her.  I'm really enjoying the process and the ups and downs and I am really feeling like this is the year of long awaited changes for me.

Just gotta get back to the gym.