This is probably the longest my hair has gotten, with no "sick spot," since I went natural in 2006.

I don’t know why I decided to lock my hair. No, that’s not true. I’m locking my hair because every winter, since my freshman year of college a patch of my hair, which I usually wear in a twist out fro, falls out. I call the patch my “sick spot.” It’s usually the width of three of my fingers behind my right ear.

It first fell out in December during finals week. College was not the best environment for my hair. The city’s water was hard, my diet was sketch, and the stress was outrageous. So every winter, like clockwork my sick spot would return.

This is my first winter out of school, the water is better, my diet is better and I’m not as stressed so theoretically my hair should have stopped falling out. But alas, I became a “picker.” I was constantly fiddling around in my sick spot, trying to determine if that hair was too dry, to tangled etc. So I literally picked my hair to near baldness…again. (Crazy I know.)

My hair had been cut recently, so even though it was relatively healthy, it was still short in the back, so I had to get creative with different styles.

It sounds awful but it’s actually not that terrible. I get the back of my hair shaved to even it up and it’s back by the summer. In the meantime the sick spot can be camouflaged in some of the freshest updos. But I got tired of the process and decided to do something to my hair that I couldn’t (or shouldn’t be able) to destroy.