A Thank You Letter from Alice
Hello MBH Fam,
As numbers of deaths in the US surpass the lives lost during World War II, it definitely feels hard to find things to be thankful for on this holiday. As I was preparing to write to you all, I started thinking about how my grandparents must have felt when they were apart. Both my grandfathers served in the war. Both were apart from their families for extended periods. I think about what my grandmothers went through trying to raise children with their husbands absent. What it must have been like to have to deal with daily life and holidays being apart and not being sure whether their loved ones would return home. I definitely feel that we are in a period of war. It is a different kind for sure, but many of us are being faced with some of the same challenges of our grandparents' generation, related to our feelings of separation, loss, and uncertainty. This is a letter of a different kind obviously. I am not away at war flying an airplane like my grandpa right now, but I am writing to you today with that perspective in mind. What would my Grandma Alice have written to my Grandpa Keith as she thought of him flying through the sky?
I miss all my clients so so much. There are so many of you that I haven’t seen in months. I get why you are not in my chair. I understand that you are fighting for your loved ones, which includes me, even when it doesn’t feel like it. I love seeing the half faces of the clients who feel ok about making me one of the few things they participate in when it comes to being in public right now. I can’t wait until our conversations are less heavy and include things like talking about your kid’s birthday party or wedding or your fun vacation. This will happen again. This is not forever. We will be together again and things will feel lighter, I promise. Sorry not sorry, but I am going to ask you to listen to The Byrds:
I was raised with the tradition that Thanksgiving was a time to reflect and be thankful. I am no longer specifically religious, but I do believe in the practice of self reflection and am spiritual in that I believe there is something bigger, something outside of myself that I answer to. Thank gawd because if everything were just up to me, that wouldn’t be good. I want to tell you all what I am thankful for this year in the midst of a lot of pain and struggle. I want to share what keeps me going and makes me hopeful. So here it is, along with some big news for my plans this winter.
I know all of us, in one way or another, have expressed the feeling of wanting to “get back to normal.” If I am fully honest with myself however, I don’t want to go back to my normal before COVID-19 existed. I wasn’t the biggest fan of my personal normal. I’ve always put a heavy focus on my career. There is nothing wrong with that in of itself, but this year has made me realize how unbalanced my life was. I’ve built a lot professionally. As I have grown MBH from an idea into two spaces and an amazing staff, a big client fam base, it has shown me so much about myself. I’ve had to grow hard and fast along with it and have fallen flat on my face quite a bit.
I did another jump last year with the second shop and it worked out professionally, but personally it was hell. That brings me to...thank gawd for the lockdown. It wasn’t the way I wanted to continue to heal my brain from last year, but it’s what it took. The universe stopped me in my tracks and has continued to this whole summer during Covid. Normally, I would have just pushed it and worked harder, but you can’t in the same ways when the work is just not there because the world in is the middle of a fucking pandemic, and so I have had to live life at a different pace. It has continued to be uncomfortable, as I’m sure most of you have experienced as well. I wouldn’t trade it though and it is because it has forced me to take account of how I spend my time and how I have been living out my daily life in ways that were not good for me or the people I love. The practice of intention. The balance of intention with personal and professional, self and others.
What I am really thankful for is the time that Covid has given me. It is time that I would not have given myself by choice, before this all happened. I really don’t want things to go back to normal. I do want a new normal, which includes a better balance in my life. This is why I am seizing the day, so they say, and am going to take a sabbatical from hair for the months of January and February. Because travel plans are bananas right now, I have a plan to plan for where I might be spending these two months. But I do have the ability to take the time and I know that the hair biz will bounce back eventually, so I am continuing to take advantage of this forced break. You all know me as well, and I refuse to just lay down and take it if the climate continues to remain slow in the beauty industry this next year. I’ve got ideas to pivot and grow parts of MBH that I need to sort out, research and writing to do, and a lot of personal reflection that needs to happen as well. For my clients personally, my amazing staff will be happy to take care of you if you need services while I’m gone.
As we are away from loved ones this holiday, let us remind ourselves that times of separation and struggle are only seasons. What we may gain collectively by the experiences of 2020 is yet to be seen, but I am thankful for what it has brought me personally and I am also so thankful for all of you and your continued support of my business and staff. I hope these words bring you comfort, even if only a little, on this day.
With love,
Alice