HAPPY NEW YEAR (and a LOC ANNIVERSARY!)

Hello folks! Happy new year to everyone--hopefully everyone's holiday was wonderful. Thanks so much for hanging with me through my not-so-frequent postings--due in part to the general craziness of the retail holiday season, but also due to my extreme fatigue. It has been discovered that I have a quite irregular heartbeat and the lack of oxygen in my system was contributing greatly to my feelings of continual and extreme fatigue and general daily feeling of malaise. I'm now under treatment and hopefully I will have the energy to post more regularly to this blog--at least that's the plan as of this moment!

Anyway, on to the good stuff--I've reached the 2 year mark! Happy Lociversary to me! January 4, 2010 was the famous (or is it infamous) day and I couldn't be happier with my locs! Sorry that I don't have a pic at the moment of my hair, I will post one later on this week--silly me let my camera's battery completely discharge and I am currently letting it charge up. Two years ago, my baby locs were less than 1/2 inch long and now in just 24 months, they are past my neck--is that amazing or what? Several people have told me to watch out now--that my hair will REALLY start to take off! One of my best friends has locs (I believe that she's into her fifth year) and she says that she's blown away by how fast they've grown. Yep, they still have a huge spiritual significance for me and yep, I'm still committed to keeping them for life. With the growth in length has come more growth in terms of patience with self and others, understanding and empathy with self/others, and self-understanding and self acceptance. In this past year, I've also had to (graciously) respond to a couple of individuals that have attacked my choice to wear my hair as I do and have also attacked my choice to wear gele (traditional african headwraps) and bindi. I had to respond graciously because the attacks took place in my professional setting and when working with the public, one must always respond in as gracious a manner as possible so as to not reflect upon the professional environment--this was in fact very difficult for me because of the personal nature of the attack. I believe that this individual choose the time and place purposely because she knew that if I were to respond in a "ghetto mama" style while on the clock, she could use that against me when reporting me to my superiors. As it is, there was a time when my self-esteem would have been severely shaken by this incident; now my self-esteem is much higher and my self-confidence and self-acceptance is such that this incident had no effect on me except to follow-up with my superior to report the incident in the event that this person decided to pursue her "complaints" further up the line (which I found out today that she did). Fortunately, my superior is supporting me to his superior so again, peace and no worries on that front. But enough of these ramblings--I hope all of you are in good health and good spirits and I really hope to be posting more regularly in the coming weeks. Blessings!