Thursday, July 16, 2015

So Much More Than A Decision To Go Gray.

Sometime in the last year I was looking at the white roots under my flaming red hair and wondered what it looked like all over with no color on it. Was it all white a la Paula Deen or was it salt and pepper, a la Jamie Lee Curtis? Maybe it was just white and silver on top and still light brown everywhere else, which would not be pretty to me.

I mentioned it to my husband and for the first time in our 20yrs together he looked at me and said he would love to see it. If you know my husband, then you know red hair is his all time favorite. Hands down. No other color mattered. If you know my husband, then you also know he says what he means and means what he says.

At first I thought he was joking. Or eying the budget, as he is very thrifty with the wallet and maintaining such a gorgeous red color without a white skunk streak of gray going straight up the middle is not cheap or time efficient. He was neither. He was serious, and not only supportive but encouraging me to look into what it would take to gracefully navigate such a big transition in my appearance while maintaining 3 jobs that put me working with the public and needing to look my best. So began our discussions about it. It was our son's senior year in high school and I really wanted to maintain the red until after graduation pictures in case I did not like the gray or was in some hideous mid-transition phase. [Vain, I know, but it's the truth.] As we would watch TV or be out and about, we would notice beautiful gray, silver and white hair more and more often and wonder if that was what was waiting for me under all this red.

I began to research it and found out that gray, or "Granny Hair" was a trend right now and that many women, old and young, were flocking to salons to get it done or taking matters into their own hands and doing it at home. If the time was ever right to do it, it was now. So I began to mention it to others. Here is a sampling of the feedback I got.

Men:
"You're going to look old."
"It won't look good."
"You're going to hate looking old."
"Why would you do that and age yourself?"
"You don't want to do that! You will look so much older!"
"Your husband won't like it because you will look so much older."
"Your husband is actually ok with it?"

Women:
"I wish I had the guts to do that."
"Aren't you afraid you will look old?"
"If I knew it would look good, I would do it too."
"I've thought about it a lot but never done it."
"I've wanted to do it for years but just can't bring myself to do it."
"Go for it!"
"OMG you are going to do it? Can't wait to see it!"

I am not hating on the guys. Honestly, I can only recall positive feedback from my husband and not another single man I spoke of it to. [Including my stylist] And I did get a couple of negative comments from women but they directed those at themselves, not me. The feedback, while some of it hurt my feelings, helped me get a better handle on my own feelings about more than just my hair.

I AM getting older. I'm not 32 anymore, or 25, or 18. I live in a world which values, at the very least, the appearance of youth and does not seem to have much regard for the appearance of gray hair, wrinkles, or age. I am in transition as my son finishes a huge chapter in his life [high school] and begins the next [college, locally] so he needs me less. My daughter is working on "moving out," strategies. I left my job of over 15yrs less than a year ago. I have recently started a new job that is unlike any other job that I have had as I am not already good at what they want me to do upon hiring me. I am having to learn the ropes in a long distance, hands-off fashion and it is scary, nerve wracking and exciting. My husband has a new schedule which has doubled his time home, something we have wanted for years. We are happier than we have ever been together and it keeps getting better all of the time.  We are beginning to down size both financially and materially to plan towards his retirement. After much God-seeking and prayer, we have finally put down roots in a new church and I am gearing up to start at least 2 new ministries. My childhood/lifelong best friend has moved literally into my neighborhood after living apart in different states for 30 years. So much change. So much transition. I have never been one to freak out over aging, so I don't think about botox, plastic surgery or lipo, although I do want to be healthy and a lot smaller. So far, no mid-life crisis, here.

In reality, Granny hair being a trend is not why now is the best time to do it. It is because I am in a serious transition stage and embracing the aging process feels like the right thing to do. I've decided to EMBRACE IT ALL. I am fast approaching 50 and I am excited, embracing what I look like and loving what I feel like. The hair color was the tip of the iceberg, the first indicator of what is going on internally. I will most likely look older, because guess what? I AM older. I'm ok with that. I have aches, pains and stiffness that I didn't have 10 years ago. I am not happy about that but I am happy I have the life experience, wisdom, compassion, and grace for others that comes from living life into the late 40s. I am not allowing the negatives of aging to be my focal point in life, primary topic of conversation and my banner flying over my head everywhere I go. Instead, starting with my hair, I am embracing life, including aging and valuing others, in a way that I did not before. As for my hair? The nuts and bolts are below.

It took me several months and lots of inquiries to find a stylist who specialized in going gray. Her name is Joyce and she owns the Colorbar in Panama City Beach. After a consultation she feels my hair is gray along the lines of what Jamie Lee Curtis has. We will go gray in several stages.

The first stage was to go from this:




To this:





All in one day.

Joyce began the process at 10:30am and we finished at 5:00pm. She did two 90 minute bleachings and one toner session using two different toner colors. This is stage one.

After 6 weeks I will go back and she will look at my gray growth and begin highlighting. I will go back every so often and she will decrease the number of highlights each time until my gray has completely grown out. In between I am using a blue/purple toned shampoo.

My husband really likes stage one, which is funny as he has always been very anti-blonde hair. As for me? I love it and can't wait to be done to see the final result! My new growth is already showing and it is fairly white. I am wondering if it will end up being more like Emmy Lou Harris? We'll see. In the meantime, I will be posting progress here!

Blessings, y'all!

Robin 

The Colorbar Facebook Page

Colorbar website 

Monday, March 23, 2015

God's Bait and Switch.













Tonight after all the kids I was chaperoning were safely tucked into their rooms I decided to go back to the lobby and get a diet coke. The store was closed and the concierge told me there is not one drink machine in the entire building. I would have to leave the building, which I did not want to do. So I went to the bar to get a diet coke, hoping no one would see me and attach more nefarious assumptions to why I was sitting at the bar alone late on a Monday night in a hotel far from home. As I waited, and waited and waited, I began to realize that the ten or so folks at the bar around me all had empty glasses and had not drank a drop since I sat down. About this time an older gentleman approached me and asked for me to take a picture of him and an incredibly elderly lady with an old style Kodak disposable camera. He apologized for the camera and offered to show me how to use it if I would be so kind as to take the picture.
I laughed because out of all the people in this bar, I was the one he picked, as I spent my first 2-3 years of band photography using disposables. So I said sure and he motioned to the lady. At this point she turns to him and begins adjusting his tie, his scarf,  his lapels, his everything. He looks at me sort of sheepishly and shrugged at which point I started laughing and said, "you know, there are times when it just can't be anything less than perfection." She is nodding and saying yes, yes over and over again, and he starts laughing too. So as I stood there, watching this lovely little lady with a glorious head of silver hair and lines beyond count on her face lovingly fussing over this gentleman, it began to dawn on me that maybe I was not down here in the lobby of this hotel in the middle of the night for what I thought. Maybe God has me here for something else.
 So I watched and smiled and counted them down for the picture. They were both very grateful and gracious although she never said anything other  than yes, yes. I do not think she spoke English much. 
It then occurred to me that maybe I could do more. I offered to take a picture with my phone and message it to him. His face lit up and he turned and explained it to the little lady. There were some more yes, yeses, and some nodding on her part. The part that I loved so much was when he told her, "now it won't take two weeks for me to send the pictures to you." In that moment I realized I could give them this tiny little gift that I take for granted every day, a simple picture that brings instant gratification unlike back when I used disposables for the band. Who were they? Were they in this hotel meeting and soon to part for who knows how long? The picture was very important to both of them. In the grander, bigger scheme of things I take thousands of photos for parents, families and friends of school kids who rarely have to wait very long for them and yet these two lovely people were going to have to wait two weeks or so for these to be developed and mailed. 
I thought I went downstairs for a coke, but really, God sent me downstairs to give a gift to two people who will soon be parted, so they could hold on to this one moment in time until the other moments are developed and mailed. 
I didn't go back upstairs with a diet coke but I did go back upstairs blessed. Thanks, God. 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

So I just decided to go with what I know....

In August of 2014 I left my job of over 15yrs at the local affiliate of the BBC, GC 90.7FM. That blog post can be found here:

Yesterday's Ending is Today's Beginning

I loved the people I worked with, still do. I was told that the door is always open for me to come back and maybe someday I will, if that door remains open. But for now, at my husband's urging and encouragement, I have decided to go with what I know .

Around 6 years ago I began giving advice to teenagers needing jobs tips to  successfully land those jobs. I was in the perfect position to do so as I volunteered with a local high school marching band program and in my church's youth group. They seemed to want to hear what I had to say and as time passed I saw success after success with those kids. I  was very passionate about the success of young people and I was so excited to see them progress from no interviews to several interviews and from no job to picking the job they wanted from more than one offer.

Band parents and church members began asking me to help their children and I began coaching kids who would not have normally approached me. Kids began to bring other kids to me that they knew were struggling to find employment and word of mouth spread. Then a strange thing happened. Adults began to approach me to help them, too. I initially felt a little weird about that, especially when it was folks who were in professional career positions. I guess it was because it meant broadening my horizons a bit and getting into more complex and challenging resume preparation as well as coaching people who had a lot more experience with job hunting and employment than the average teenager. I wasn't sure they would trust my instincts and I am certainly not in possession of a degree that says I have been certified to job coach. To my surprise those coaching sessions went as well as the teen/first time job seeker sessions did. And so it began.

Fast forward to the second half of 2014. I felt like things were coming to a close at the radio station, and I was really not sure what to do with myself. I also work as a substitute teacher and during the summer of 2014, the school district placed limitations on the number of hours subs could work each week. This meant that subbing would only play a part time role in my life, which I am ok with as I do not believe I am cut out to be a full time sub. Trust me when I say that high school students can be a very tough crowd. What to do?

My husband and I met at our favorite coffee haunt, Chez Amavida, and hashed ideas. We both felt that there is something out there for me but were not sure what it was. Suddenly my husband looked at me and said, "Baby , just go with what you know! You are already helping all of these people and you offer a valuable service. Let's explore the job coaching thing." I was a little dumbfounded but the more we talked about it, the more I realized he had put forth a great idea and it was well worth exploring.

I started with Teen Workforce Prep Services and my brain trust [read: circle of trusted friends and smart people I admire] felt it was too narrowing in scope and advised me to drop the teen part. so I did. Next was make a Facebook page and see if there was any interest. I also updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect the new business and crossed my fingers. I contacted the kids that I had worked with as far back as I could remember and asked for letters of recommendation, which many wrote with excitement and gusto. Many kids I coached I did not know as they were referrals from other kids so I am missing quite a few letters but I just figure if it is meant to be it will work out without those letters.

So here I am, on the eve of a launch campaign to get the word out, blogging about what led me here. I don't know if I will ever be able to make a living at it but I am sure going to put myself out there and see what happens.

If you or someone you know is in need of my services, from resume to interview to beyond, contact me at my Facebook page and we can sit down and see what it will take to get you where you want to be.

Blessings, y'all!


Robin

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