Well it looks like I'm back at the drawing board again. I just got my retouch after a 10 week stretch and was hoping to enough growth to get me over the APL hump. I've been almost APL for several months now.
However, my stylist told me my ends are horrible and she just about all of the growth I had gotten over the ten weeks. I really hated having to lose it, but I know it's for the best in the long run. I'm just happy she kept my length at status quo.
She told me that flat ironing is doing a number on my ends. I also need to start wrapping my hair at night instead of just sleeping on my hair. The good news is that she says my hair is very healthy otherwise, and if I can just keep away from the flatiron that everything will be fine.
Sooooo, I've bitten the bullet and dug up my satin cap and bought some satin rollers to curl my hair overnight. I am really going to miss the look of having flatironed hair and just the knowledge that you can always style your hair instantly. I work out, and I hate that I'm going to have to wear my hair wrapped up when I workout now. It won't be an issue too much because it's usually dark when I go out to run anyway, but still, an adjustment.
Still, I've come to accept that this is the only way I'm going to get long healthy hair, so I'm doing it. These are things that just about all the women with long healthy hair on this board do, so I should have known that I would have to start doing this eventually.