CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S MONTH
As a hairstylist and salon owner, there is so much to love about my job.
Hairstyling is one of the few jobs that you can say you help someone not only look and feel their best externally, but you can also help them to feel better internally. Seeing someone leave the salon so much lighter and happier than they came in with not just more beautiful hair, but a gorgeous lightness to them is such a gift. Our clients share with us new relationships, break ups, new babies, big moves, career changes, all of life’s ups and downs, and the hair is really only part of this job. They also share with us the best restaurants, movies, celebrity gossip, places you need to see and more! If you ever need advice, definitely ask a hairstylist! We kind of hear it all.
Another great thing about doing hair is it really is a career that has so many opportunities. I’ve worked in a salon and day spa, in Chicago’s number one punk rock Salon, on stage as a platform artist and taught in front of hundreds of people at huge hair shows and in private classes for an international hair company, and now I own my own salon here in San Diego. Every day is different. One day you can be doing a full head of baby-lights and the next a pink pixie cut!
One of the absolute best parts of the job is getting to help clients create an outward expression of who they are. Many times people see you before they get to hear you, so getting to create a look that is truly you, that says something about who you are, and invokes confidence is a great way to tell the world “Hey! This is who I am!”
I love starting my day with Timehop! It’s an app that will collect all the photos from your social media, google photos, etc. from that day over many years and share them as an anniversary post, everyday! I love seeing old pics of my kids, but the best is to hear those little voices in the videos! Such a happy way to start my day!
I also always start with coffee. Whether I’m traveling or at home I love having coffee from a local roaster. Nothing compares! Even now that I don’t drink caffeine, I still look forward to that decaf coffee!
As I began to find and wear my own style, I was also able to show more of who I was on the inside. It definitely created a confidence that I had not felt before. I also started to get noticed more, and I don’t think it was all because of what I was wearing. I think it’s because people could feel that fresh confidence radiating from me!
I’m not sure when I realized that having balance in life is a myth - it’s more about creating as much balance as possible, while allowing some things to be a bit out of balance.
For a long time, I was really hard on myself about getting things balanced. I told myself I needed to create a plan that would create that balance. However, as I have matured, I realize that the way to truly feel balanced is to give yourself grace.
Being a working mom, volunteering at the school when I could, owning and working at my salon, and not having any family around means sometimes my house is going be a mess! When we not only give ourselves grace for those things that don’t fit perfectly into balance, and we surround ourselves with people that understand that there is no such thing as a perfect balance, it takes such a weight off of our shoulders.
We have to realize that life isn’t a straight nor smooth road, so even if you think you achieve balance you’re gonna get tossed off and have to readjust. Rather than trying to achieve perfection, just being OK with some things not being perfect is a balance in itself. Depending on where you are in life, that will determine what things stay as the main priority and what does not.
Ensuring that my kids know it’s not only okay to have a voice, it’s one of most important things to use. I talk to my kids a lot about how I was raised to say “I’m sorry” more times than I can count, and to ignore my own boundaries. I want the opposite for my kids. I want them to be able to stand up for what’s right for themselves and for others. If we stay quiet it can seem like a form of acceptance, and we should never accept being treated as lesser than or powerless.
Education is a huge part of women and girls' rights, equality, and empowerment. There’s the obvious part of ensuring that girls have equal and equitable access to education. But we also must teach our girls about how hard women before us fought for the rights we have today. It wasn’t until 1974 that a woman could have a credit card on her own! The past can not only teach us about where we came from, but prepare us for where we are going.
I have really tried to share with people what having a non-binary child means. My non-binary child happens to also be on the spectrum, so explaining the statistics on that is something I do in hopes of removing not just the stigma, but the fear some groups of people have around people who are not heteronormative. People on the autism spectrum are 70% more likely to identify as non-heterosexual than their Neurotypical peers. My hope is that by educating people, it will create more understanding, reduce fear, and make others want to fight for my non-binary child to have the same rights as any other child. I hold hope. I won’t give up hope that someday the vast majority of people will understand that all 3 of my kids deserve equality in life and the rights to live in their power!
