What's a Transitioner To Do?

So, I am eight months and one week post relaxer! Yay! I'm happy that I have stuck with this journey thus far. I don't think I could have or would have stuck with it this long were it not for the transitioning styles I've been doing.  Those styles have kept me from over handling my hair, handling my hair incorrectly and becoming frustrated with my hair and perming it.  My goal is to transition for at least a year and see where I am at that point, then decide if I will continue to transition or do the big chop.

The flip side of this whole process is that it has been 8 months and I have barely handled my hair. I attempted a braid out or twist out early on in this journey. I think some time in September...it was not good. I don't know if it was because I didn't have much new growth in comparison to my processed hair or not, but my processed hair did not react well to the twist out. I did do a cold wave/perm rod set and that went well. My only issue with that was not having any hair around my face. For some reason I have no problem with wearing cornrows, which take my hair completely out of my face for months on end, but having my actual hair out of my face makes me very uncomfortable.  These are the things that I, basically have to get over in order to go through this process of transitioning and go through it well. Or, what I believe well to be.

At some point I need to have the true experience of dealing with my transitioning hair.  I think it would be wrong for me to go through this whole transitioning process and not have learned how to deal with the two textures of my hair. What will I have gained if I transition with different styles of braids until I do the BC and then don't know how to handle my natural hair? How will I know what products work for me and which ones don't if I don't start somewhere?  I would hate to go through this process and come out on the other end completely ignorant about what does and doesn't work for me.

So, having said all this, what in the world and I going to do?  Am I going to try & have my hair out and let it breath for a little while after I take out these kinky twists or am I going to get cornrows, like I really want to do? I know what I need to do, but sometimes knowing that what you need and what you want are very close to you creates a fear or apprehension that you didn't know you were going to have. I'm dealing with that on a couple of things right now and I don't know what I'm going to do for either of them.