So as many of my real life peeps know, I’ve been rocking weaves on and off throughout the years… I usually get it put in at the beginning of the summer and taken out at the beginning of fall. Let’s call it my “Summer Hair.” I made a decision at the beginning of 2009 to forgo the Summer Hair for that year and pretty much for the rest of my life and let my ‘real’ hair rock… I basically couldn’t see myself as an 80 year old great grandma using a pick comb to scratch my scalp under the sew-in tracks, so I confidently made it through the summer heat and proceeded to leave the weave behind… UNTIL I got a bright idea to chop ALL of my hair off and dye it light brown… it was a really cute cut, but it was an inexperienced stylist who subsequently made my hair fall out. Long story short, She gave me 2 color treatments and 2 relaxers in the course of 4 weeks and poof! Be gone! My hair started falling out in clumps… I have that African slave strength hair and my hair can withstand a lot of trauma, but this woman was clearly on a mission… I ended up going to my ‘weavist’ (new word?) to weave it up and give the few strands I had left a break… she took one look at the damage and said, “Oooooh, she was hating on you! Look what she did to your hair!” (thanks…) So now 6 months later, I couldn’t take it anymore so I took out the weave, threw on some of that creamy crack (relaxer for all you squares) and was pleasantly surprised to see that my hair was growing back with my old texture and thickness… I used to feel a little guilt about wearing a weave b/c I knew that YOU knew it wasn’t hair that grew off of my head naturally, but had it not been for 2 weaves and about 30 ounces of hair over the last 6 months, who knows what hair I would have had left. I wonder why there’s such a stigma over weaves… I mean it’s just one way to style hair, just like a wig or and afro is another. You have to maintain it and take care of it like any other style. Long story short, Ladies (and some of you fellas… how YOU doooin’?), if you want it, get it.