Today was an odd day. I’ll be honest this move in salons has effected me in more ways then I’ve ever expected. I think when you make major changes in your life sometimes major changes come with it. Guess that didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I’m getting older and it’s like there are emotions I find I never knew existed and yet I read each of these blogs I have written and I say the same thing in each one.
I think it all boils down to who are you pouring into and who’s pouring into you. Seasons… lord I write a lot about them. I think back to a season when I was in my twenties. I had a friend who was basically a single mom with 2 small kids. I think back how she sometimes had to open the oven to heat her house but yet I was in her life for such a season. I barely talk to her anymore. I feel certain we could catch lunch tomorrow and we both could find a subject to talk about but we are in very different stages of our lives now. See that sounds callus. It’s true. Choices are made daily. We make the choice to pick up the phone, forge relationships, or to let them go. We are ALL guilty. Myself especially. We say we are “busy” but we are only as busy as we want to be. I make my schedule at work every day. I will work late hours to accommodate people and switch people around consult other stylist and for what? For me, for them ,for both? What’s my motive? To please or to make more money? To not disappoint them ? This career is not for the faint I can tell you. I can’t tell you how many times I have made house calls for customers, grieved over lost children or parents or divorces and you become their family. Then you can’t get them in on a Saturday or they see a ounce of gold( I hate the new ice blonde phase) and they’ll leave you as fast as they found you. Those same ones you were grieving with last week. I get it. I sound super sensitive tonight but I guess I am. It’s never been about the customer to me but more about the relationship. Let me say this for those I have lost I have also had some of the best stay. I think about one I did today. I watched her divorce, remarry, lose her husband, fight cancer twice and find her birth parent. That’s not a regular client life but I truly rejoice with her and have grieved with her as well. See that’s history and I think when people leave their hairdresser they don’t realize their hairdresser is losing a friend or family member as well. I also know it’s about seasons. Just as that friend was in my life in my 20s she was supposed to be there for just that. A season. I have customers who I’ll do for one year and some one day. Some for 10 years and some for all 25. Bottom line you learned something from them. I saw a lady today in my salon who’s hair I did years ago. She now goes to another lady there. I reflected on how she introduced me to a lady who changed the course of my life. A lady who’s hair I did for a short few years but when she was dying she asked only a few people to come see her. I was one. I had just had Callie I believe and I was so moved by that. See I didn’t see that lady today and not speak. She just sitting there reading her magazine never knew how her introducing me to her friend changed my life. You are human. You invest and some stay and some go. I have lost one of my biggest inspirations in the last week. She moved away and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will both make an effort to keep in touch. God placed me in her life during her loss of her mother and she in mine as a second mother. She has poured into my children and my assistants as long as I knew her. She will continue to be a part of my life because she and I make that choice.
Tonight one of my most precious customers lost her son. She has walked through more heartache then any mom, wife and daughter should ever have to. I’ll call her tomorrow and I’ll do whatever she needs in the upcoming weeks. Just be kind to those who invest in you. Love on them. Be encouraging. Thank them for their part on your story or your season. Leave on a good note. I have some going back to do tonight after I write this. I am reminded of how I have someone who’s played such a big role in my life and I haven’t thanked her enough. She is sunshine and I got to do her hair today but I didn’t tell her. I pray for my friend tonight who lost her child. I pray for those who’s passed through my chair and who are back again. For those who left and Ill never see again. BUT for today God reminding me that they played a role just as that lady did in my life who sat in someone else chair. She had a purpose. Have a purpose. Be purposeful with your words, with your friends and who you let pour in and out into. That’s all I got tonight.
Memoirs of a “Not So Famous Hairstylist” 