So this is the New Decade

Truth be told, this has been a difficult year for our family, in terms of our mental and physical health.  I say “our” health because as a family you don’t just share germs, you share everything.  As depression ebbs in one, in flows in the next.  And the viruses hit us one at a time.  So there is always a parent strong enough to parent.  But it is exhausting to be either the strong one or the sick one continuously.  But we are working through and building strength in a way that I do have hope for the 2020’s.  Our boys are the most amazing kids we could ever imagine, and while it’s true that Samson is nearing that famous three year old attitude, I still know he is such a good kid and he tells us, “I just really love you,” every day.  The irony of yelling at your child: “You are not being quiet and calm!”  The points you are driven to but not proud of but able to back track together.

This year I finally kicked the Zyrtec.  It’d been 7 years on the stuff.  And the way my mind started moving after I stopped made me realize I’d been living in a fog.  And that my actual allergies aren’t really that bad.  Just my withdrawal symptoms are.  Weirdly it has made me want to write again, being out of that brain fog.  Though I rarely have the time to complete a thought.  And it has also gave me mild insomnia.  This year I have also started to realize how bad my Seasonal Affective Disorder is, and that is something to be worked on in the new year.

I also became stronger physically than I ever had.  And then had to stop exercising due to an energy and it was so hard to slow down.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get back to it.  It was hard to admit to myself how much I had valued my own physical weakness, how comfortable it was for me to not be able to do certain things for myself like hoisting a suitcase into the overhead bin, how I let my body hurt through my work because I wasn’t willing to strengthen it.  I am active but I need more than that to keep up with the boys.  I need strength of every kind.

For the next decade, I guess my hope is just that we can nurture our friendships.  It is so hard for me to make friends as a parent.  It has always been easy for me to live and let live, but when you’re a parent it’s hard to relate to people who aren’t “in the thick of it” (what everyone says about our life right now) or haven’t been there before, but then the flip side is it is hard to have a nice time with parents if our kids don’t get along.  I like to let Samson play free, but at the same time, when he goes through his streaks of boundary pushing, I don’t want them pushed on other kids, and when he is being growled at, or yelled at to “get down” until he is, off the playground, off his feet, burrowing into the mulch, well… not so easy for me to hang out for idle chit chat.  But we have started to meet some amazing people and our old friendships have deepened over the last several years.

I am most thankful for my work this year.  My clientele and my work life balance is exactly where I want it and I am so grateful that after 8 years my work life is looking how I always imagined it could, even though I was often discouraged or outright told, NO.  I don’t make the most money but we are able to fund our beautiful, minimalist life and save some towards retirement and some for a rainy day.  I don’t know what more we could need.

So here’s to 2020, may you all have what you need, and maybe a little more.  <3

A Place to Belong

We recently returned from some adventures out west.  I was in Los Angeles for work and we met in Austin, TX to scope out the city.  I’d felt some strange calling there, mainly that it was this haven for weirdos and I thought maybe it might be perfect for Richard and me.  We have been contemplating a move for some time and would like it to be this summer.  This summer it will complete our seventh year in Pittsburgh and I am looking to the future.  I love this city and we could surely raise a family here, but why?  To be in a small city with a mediocre hair market, why, we might as well be near our family.  I love our friends here, but who’s to say they will still be here in ten years?

Los Angeles is incredible.  When I am there for work, it feels like a family reunion.  The good kind.  I have friends I admire and adore to such a remarkable degree there, and I believe, without a doubt, that if I lived there I would become the best hairdresser, technically, that I possibly could become.  I know exactly where I would want to work and have decent ideas of where I would want to live.  The weather is flawless.  The ocean, of course, is incredible.  Great food.  Not cheap to live in, but cheap compared to my earning potential.  More opportunities and more diverse work options.  I could take off as a hairdresser. Closer to my family.  It sounds like a dream.

And yet.

And yet I’m just not sure I have the feelings I need to have to move there.  LA people love their city, and to many, there is no better place in the world to be, mostly for the reasons mentioned above.  I guess I feel like maybe I will end up there, but that now is not the time in my life, like I need other influences on my life before I can settle down somewhere like LA.  I feel like I don’t have my own style solidified, like I need more time of exploration in a new place.  Save up.  Get better at hair.  Better at doing hair my way, even if I make mistakes getting into it.  Even if it gets a little weird.  I have loved making things up as I go along.  I am afraid of doing it any other way.

And for this reason, I feel like Austin is the place.  Why not move to a city where we have two friends and start over?  What could be more inspiring?  And what’s more, it is cheap, it is growing and I have a serendipitous feeling about a salon there.  We can start a little family and figure it out from there.  

When Hair is Not Enough

The last few months have been…. So strange. Everything in my life is going so incredibly well. It isn’t perfect but it isn’t supposed to be. I am so out of rhythm, but life rhythm has never been a strong force in my life. I’ve always made my own, and the sporadic tempo has always suited me, except when it doesn’t.

I am always alarmed when the past comes back. The twentieth time it shouldn’t shock me, but it always does.

Recently, people pay attention to me. It makes me feel like I need to represent some demographic, like I need to be relatable. That has never been my strong point, I have always felt apart. I have always been mostly on my own, I have always only given half of me away to friends. Richard is honestly the only person who I have ever felt “gets” me and possibly the only person with the capacity to. I wish I could stand in front of my past like the perfect poster child and be an example to others, but I did everything the wrong way and found success anyway. Or really there is no right. Who knows? I can’t tell people how to be because I am not them.

I am a bit of a hard ass towards those who have been through hardship because I think anything else is offensive. I don’t talk about the things I have been through but I firmly believe that those things cannot hold me back. There are no ifs. You can do something or you can’t.

I love my work so much. I don’t know anyone my age with the sureness, passion and commitment both to my job and my husband. I am luckier than most. But there is an intensity in my life that pushes and pushes and I just can’t seem to let it all out. I feel stifled, which is absurd. I have all the creative freedom in the world. The inspiration is spinning but I am knocked off my axis by people who look like other people and sounds and smells that transport me to another place.

I don’t understand. So I write.

There are moments in my career when….

…nothing feels real.

I really can’t wrap my head around my week coming up. Work at the salon, teaching a class, flying out to NY and doing hair at Intercoiffure. I am incredibly honored and excited, but at the same time this just feels like any other Sunday night after a busy day at the salon. And next Sunday I will be on stage representing Sebastian. I have some pretty crazy hairstyles planned, so here’s to hoping they are half as cool when they are out of my brain and that the laws of physics don’t turn against me.

Stay tuned.

Talking about music

I swear, Richard is the only one that has any idea what I am talking about when I try to talk about music. Someone will ask me what a band sounds like and I will go into extreme poetic detail about my emotional reactions to their music. And then they will repeat… But what do they sound like?

It is near impossible for me to tell my delusions from ambition sometimes. I don’t know the bounds of reality. It is both good and bad. But winning awards and having hairdressers who have far more experience is… Confusing. I am just doing my thing and can’t imagine it any differently.

Sebastian What’s Next Competition

Sebastian What's Next Competition.

Everybody Lies

I often tell Richard that he reminds me of a much younger Dr. Gregory House. He doesn’t care for this comment, mostly because he would rather be happier, at the expense of being wrong occasionally. But intrinsic to both characters is the ever-humming mantra: “Everybody lies.”

I long ago adopted a similar yet more romantic belief, that everybody has an inner self more beautiful and complex than what is on the outside, that they leave clues to this inner character hidden in plain sight. The more idealistic version of myself loved chasing these clues and leaving my own. The breadcrumbs I left would be left un-eaten for the most part. I always thought any decently intelligent fellow or lady would pick up on the foreshadowing, and for awhile I despaired, unsure if I was despairing because no one was smart enough or because everyone was just that indifferent to me.

With Richard, he always understood, you could see it in his eyes. Yet, he interacted with me primarily as if he knew only what I said, which I found puzzling at first. He was not a man without curiosity, just a man with unimaginable patience. He was used to dealing with people who misrepresent themselves, as he puts every single person alive and conscious in that category.

To say that “Everybody lies” sounds incredibly cynical. Richard has never been one to pick his language to fit a tone. To me words are more flexible and fluid. Sound and feeling mean everything. To him, words have precise meanings and if one sounds too harsh he will mutter it anyway with a clinical indifference.

I have drifted towards his camp. The main differences between his beliefs that everybody lies and mine that everyone hides away a secret, special part of their personality are that for his belief, there no goods and no bads, just what is, and also that mine required agency whereas in his belief people can, and usually are, completely unaware that they are lying. Thus, my old methods of discovering people changed and I stopped hating people who seemed to be worse liars than others.

I guess the whole point of this is: don’t vilify people who don’t know who they are yet. You don’t know who you are either and it is probably ok. I’m not saying there is some malevolent force behind every person that talks to you. People are complicated. People are deceptive. It is ingrained in us. It is ingrained in me to round down the price of everything I buy and make it sound $5-$10 cheaper. There are a lot of things I say when I’m caught up in the moment that I don’t mean and don’t even realize until the next day or week. And I don’t think I’m unusual. We all lie and the most we can hope for is to find at least one person who listens to your eyes better than your words, that will call you out when things don’t make sense or don’t match up. Because people are emotional and bound to occasionally say the love things they hate and hate things they love and you just need to use context and history and knowledge of personality to do your best and approach the asymptotic truth.

And if you think you’re an exception, I would love to be the person to tell you you’re wrong.

On Notions of Feminine Weakness

I’m not sure where in our recent history of western womanhood we veered so off track. But somewhere along the way (probably in those rebellious decades that are truly so liberating and awe-inspiring) being outspoken became a coveted virtue, and riding on its coat tails was the perverse little sister: being a bitch. Now, this is a sensitive topic, because often times you will hear the argument that when a man is outspoken he is revolutionary and when a woman is outspoken she is just being a bitch. Yes, yes, this is a valid concern, but trust me when I say that I don’t like it when anyone is offensive, obnoxious or excessively (and vocally) ignorant.

And yet, I am addressing this as a woman’s issue.

The reason for this is because I am a woman and I am quiet and gentle and, I have to admit, quite dainty. I married young and possess a truly unyielding and unconditional love for my husband. I am soft spoken and very private about most of my opinions and, frankly, don’t see the point in chronicling my complicated view points in conversation. Occasionally I will delve deeper into myself in my blog, but this format is mostly for me. While others are welcome in, I dread the thought that anyone should feel captive to my meandering consciousness.

Some women take my gentleness, my devotion, my private nature, and chalk it all up to weakness.

I will hear “outspoken” women speak to me as if they are more evolved, as if I won’t get what I want in life because I am not aggressive enough. It is true that I do not enjoy confrontation, but truly, who does? That seems only natural. Some people seem to seek it out, to display their prowess. I prefer a quiet, comforting confidence. And why shouldn’t I be confident in myself? Because I am passive?

I have walked away from many conversations because aggression and competition become more important than open, honest communication. I am intensely passionate about the subjects that interest me and it is painful to see concepts of interest to me twisted into perverse versions of themselves… And for what?

I see a lot of women who are timid like me, but with the most intense feelings of inadequacy. And “strong” women attribute it to their timid nature. The way I see it, there is an epidemic of feelings of inadequacy amongst modern women. Naturally outspoken women deal with this by being outright bitches, and timid women deal with this by hiding behind their quiet nature. Weakness and strength are present in every one and every temperament. It is foolish to see temperament as the main indicator as to whether or not someone is comfortable within their own skin.

I am not quiet because I don’t have strong views or because I don’t feel like I can defend them. I just believe everything has its time and place and I don’t waste my words on people who just allow me to fit a few sentences in during pauses in a monologue. A conversation, when working correctly, goes in two directions.

Do not pity me because I am quiet. I value calm, I value patience, I value acceptance and peace. And, more to the point, I almost always get exactly what I want.

On Reading Sylvia Plath While Everyone Else is Drinking at Cookouts

Or: On Reading The Bell Jar at the Perfect Time in Your Life
Or: The Right Book to Drop in a Bath Tub

I am rather surprised that it took me until age 23 to read The Bell Jar, because I have always enjoyed Plath’s poetry. Although, maybe my attraction to her poetry and the veracity and fierceness of it scared me off from her novel. And also, for some reason, I think related to the order our literature teacher shuffled through summaries, it has always been tied in my mind to The Color Purple, which might as well be stored in my mind as “book with copious sexual violence”. The book seems to hold a weird space in popular culture, where it is always the book in the hand of the aggressive, broody feminist.

Stylistically, the book is much different than I expected. Mainly because nothing about the language and word play sounded like it was coming from a poet. I have to wonder if Plath had lived in the modern day where prose and poetry is less dichotomy and more continuum, if her book had read differently. I was a little disappointed by how conversational it sounded, but it definitely hooked me and by the end, I have to say, the book was probably better for it. To show a version of depression that is not poetic, is not glamorous, is not sensational, but rather dull, droning, confused and disordered. The content and realism is what carried the book.

I really believe that I read this book at the ideal time, as a young woman only a few years older than the protagonist, in a less extreme version of the same dilemma and from within a structure more supportive than she has. A good way to remind myself to really appreciate what I have. It is curious to imagine myself living in her time and without my supports and to wonder how well my own temperament would deal with what she goes through.

This dilemma, this transition to adulthood, is one that I have only partly made it through. To begin life winning every honor, every scholarship and have nearly every door open to you, it feels like this transition should be another simple, natural step, but really it makes it ever more difficult. It is so much easier to live in the world of “I could do x, y or z” then to actually set out to do any of these things. Not only because each of those things is difficult but also because they are mostly exclusive. Choosing x means you may never again have the opportunity to do z. And the action of making the choice is a heavy one, especially if along an early step of the way you have someone like Jay Cee taking notice of your hesitance, your anxiety, and saying, “Is this really what you want?” and you have to admit to yourself for the first time that you don’t know what you want but you wish “Everything” was an option.

The Swim Back

A client sighs at me from the shampoo bowl, says, “You’re making it all go away,” and I want to cry, knowing her mother is still dying but she is right here, slick hair safe within my tiny, strong hands.

Some days I can’t seem to put a sentence together.  It mostly doesn’t matter.  Chalk it up to stress, but why?

If you haven’t seen Gattaca, this won’t make as much sense.  But there is a rivalry between a very weak older brother and a genetically perfect younger brother in this film.  They always play chicken in the ocean, where they swim out as far as they dare and whoever turns back first loses.  Of course, the genetically perfect brother always wins.  Except for twice, the first time being a turning point in their adolescence and the second time being the next time they play as adults.  Ethan Hawke, the genetically inferior, has great ambitions of being an astronaut in a future where that is impossible for someone of his genetic stature, and so this swimming race is something of a metaphor for his life.  ANYWAY, there is a big dramatic moment when they race as adults that Richard (and really most smart people I talk to) find incredibly cheesy but I find rather profound, where Ethan Hawke is winning the game and the younger brother yells, “I never understood how you beat me that day.” And Ethan Hawke yells back: “I never saved anything for the swim back.”  So now that is explained and I will return to it later.

Sometimes I am called weak, generally not through actual words but through looks and sighs and innuendo.  Generally it just makes me feel an intense amount of distance towards the person because I am purposefully a very private person and I know that most people aren’t intuitive enough to “get” what’s going on.  And frankly it’s not worth trying. 

Richard is the only one who I will allow to call me weak.  He rarely does, but when it happens I know he really understands me and my struggles and has no motivation to hurt me.  He also happens to be the strongest person I know.  I know he has proven imperfect at times and has had moments of weakness, but to know the extent of his multi-faceted pain, it is remarkable he is as good as he is.  He truly never saves anything for the swim back, which has on occasion led to weeks left in bed.  When he was young the doctors said that either they would break the migraines or the migraines would break him.  I would say that he is not only not broken, but doing fairly well compared to most people our age.

Lately I have been feeling very weak willed.  I have been saving a lot for the swim back, which I hesitate to consider weak, but rather sensible.  I fear a huge falling apart when motion stops.  I fear breaking myself down.  I fear churning the inner ore, shifting the plates too suddenly and erupting from every orifice.  If within the metaphor saving nothing means either complete victory or death, why would I be so confident in myself that I get the victory?  Maybe you need that confidence for there to be any benefit in saving nothing.  But what is the real life equivalent of death?  For me it would be waking up one day and having it all be meaningless.  To have spent every last unit of energy and sanity my body has and to wake up feeling like it has been for nothing.