Then there are those moments. Those moments when the most likely and unlikely clients all of a sudden, have your back, want to fight for you, make sure you are OK, check in on you, cry with you and for you and generally take over telling you to stay home, eat, get better and the ones that really know me, gently yell at me when I still think I am 20 years old and can just power thru this illness. I have never been sick in my life, and with it turning into pneumonia and ending up septic because of all the infections I had going on in my body without resting completely, it nearly put me into the hospital and I will probably takes months to fully recover.
This is the moment where my army of loving considerate clients come in, the clients I now realize are my friends. The clients who refused to come in until I was well, or at least felt up to it, and those clients are the ones that brought me wellness tea, protein bars because they knew how much weight I had lost, refused to get into my chair until I ate, brought me essential oils, vitamins and a vaporizer , texted me, called me and checked up on me daily and either stopped by with soup, sent me cards or offered to come sit with me, clean my house or bring me food. Some of these clients are still checking on me daily. I never expected the outpouring of love and consideration and realize that these are the reasons I have been doing hair for 27 years and probably will into my 80's.
What about the Handful of clients that couldn't or adamantly refused? Yes I had one send me a text that said "I am sorry you are so sick, but that is not my problem, I pay you to do a job and I have a very important meeting next week I need to look good for, so I will see you at 2:15 regardless... I will bring you soup." That Client was 35 minutes late, brought me a can of condensed Chicken and Stars soup and even though I could barely stand up and had a mask on , told me not to talk to her because she could not afford to get sick. That night was my second trip to Urgent Care. She is also the client that has no showed me at 5 am and then demanded I get her in because her hair looked terrible, which it never has more than a 4 week outgrowth. She has 2 strikes, I may even let her go before the 3rd.
Because of this eye opening experience, I now have a compromised immune system but I have also learned that it is OK to take care of myself. My health is more important, losing a day or even 3 of work is better than the total of 9 days I had to reschedule and I also now know the clients I want to keep around, want to keep me around as well. I guess I now realize they love me every bit as much as I love them. Thank you too all of my Angels whether you were Hardcore or Sweet.... I feel it, and I love you too.
