As I have been packing up our lives in various sizes of boxes I can't help but think back and wonder on how things used to be and how they are now.
I started with the salon.
I sold off all my beloved salon furniture on Saterday, and the funny thing is the girl who showed up to buy it from me was a girl I used to work with. We laughed and caught up.
After she left, I sat on the cold bare wood floors of my empty salon, with my head on my knees and thought for a very long time. I thought over various clients I used to have, some I loved, some drove me nuts. I thought back to when I worked at the kids' salon. The whole way to work I would cry into the car because I was having to be away from my new baby all day.
(Alenna was, after all, just a newborn.)
Every little snot-nosed kid who's hair I had to cut I hated more and more than the last as the day wore on. They were keeping me from my little one. Every break I got, I ran out the exit door, into the dark smelly alley just to phone home. When the clock hit 6 the only indication I had been there was the smell of burning rubber in the parking lot. I flew home just about as fast as the law would permit.
Once home, I would hold Alenna and sing to her, and cry softly to myself, just so happy to be home with my girl. I began to dread Saterdays. Finally when Alenna was a year old I finally got the nerve to quit, I was on cloud nine, even though I left burning bridges. I began doing hair from my house, which became close to impossible. I learned quickly that a 1 year old doesn't care how long bleach needs to process, they want what they want and they want it NOW. I explained to my clients it was just too difficult and reffered them on to other hairdressers I knew. They all were moms and very understooding which made it so much easier on me.
Not long after, I became pregnant with Brady. As my belly grew and grew, the more time passed, and, quicker than I was comfortable with. My salon became just an empty space for dust and needless things to collect. Every time I would leave my house, the salon would stare back at me blankly and a small amount of guilt began to pile in my ever-growing belly.
What a waste, I would think.
Winter turned to Spring. Spring turned to summer. Summer to fall. Fall back to winter.
The room I found once to be a retreat quickly became a place for Alenna and her friends to play in for hours at a time.
At least, though, it was getting some use, which helped quite the nag inside my huge pregnant belly.
And now here I stand bare foot, packing the few left over items: a color brush, some foils, a couple buisness cards...and I laugh to myself remembering a time I thought I knew it all.
Ryan and I would lie in bed for hours, long into the night and excitidly talk about a better life with just the sheets between us. We would discuss where we would live, what we would drive, every last little detail. And, despite the boiling hot night, and the beads of sweat on our forheads, we would happily fall asleep in one anothers arms.
I have thought back on that couple alot lately.
My, how things have changed!
We were just a couple of kids not too long ago, now we've got a couple kids of our own, and I'd like to think we have picked up a few things along the way. So, here's to the un-known! I never would have imagined my life like this, or where it has led us. Thats what I love about life though, the only predictable thing about it is it's unpredicability.
Everything changes...always.
