Let this nonsense end.
I am ready.
Not in a sense where I feel 100% prepared for every challenge that comes my way, but in a way that I am impatiently anticipating the ability to see how I react to adversity. Karlo has since graduated and gotten into his job facing real world problems, and now I'm at a point where my shop owner is making final renovations, ensuring that the shop is ready for the arrival of a second barber (this guy). This is a gut-wrenching awakening.
I am ready to be done with school, but with only one week left, my patience is wearing indescribably thin in the final hours of the 900 required by the state of Idaho. I've found that I spend far more time planning for the future, and far less time invested in focusing on the present. I have no less than three fallback plans to each of the backup plans that were put in place in case my main plans fall through. I've finalized my menu and prices, set up my square account, and will be updating the site with a reservation system within the next few weeks. I also have only a month and a half left to get all of the legal processes finished up. I still need to set up an EIN/tax id so I can operate as an independant business, set up a small business bank account, and order business cards. Business cards are such a minor aspect of the business as a whole, but I have anxiety over them. I have always had the mentality that they are an extension of yourself, and now that I have to have a larger emphasis on the need to marketing myself locally, I find myself battling over what I consider to be the perfect balance between frugality and luxury. It's alright, though, I have about 4 weeks before that becomes a real issue.
I'm also incredibly excited about getting out of an environment of.....how did I put it earlier? I'm ready to be away from self-centered individuals who take everything short of everything seriously in the most overdramatic fashion possible. I am upgrading my life from 8 hours of saturated vanity to 10 hours of balls to the wall having fun downtown. I'm excited to leave the bitchy/catty teenagers and 20-somethings that have very little life experience and think they have lived life to the furthest extent they can experience first hand. It's not that I feel I've experienced it more than them, far from it. I just can't stand the sheer concept that at the age of 20, you have all of your shit together. I was 20 almost a decade ago, and now as I creep up on 30 (holy crap, that's happening in less than a year) I realize how many more experiences I have ahead of me, and more specifically how much more there is I have to be able to learn.
Above all else, though, I am SICK of living in hypotheticals. Hypothetically, I'm quitting my job soon. Hypothetically, I am going to be working full time in a shop. Hypothetically, I'm going to stop struggling with money during this transitional phase of my life. All of the plans I have devised have included the prerequisite of being comfortable again. I can actively remember what it was like to live comfortably, and it didn't require much more than where I'm at right now, but now I'm finally at a point where I can include happiness with the comfort I want to have.
So graduation is just around the corner- what does this mean to me? Next Wednesday I will stand in front of my school and spend a few minutes telling them about my experiences, and giving them my 'words of wisdom' to learn from. I will literally be sharing with them my version of the barber story. Barbering has provided me an alternative to suicide, which was quickly becoming the best available option. Barbering has provided me an outlet for the creativity that I never knew was inside of me. Barbering has pushed me to be a better version of myself. Once I obtain my license, barbering is going to open doors that I didn't even realize were unlocked. Barbering has provided a family that wasn't accessible in the corporate world.
Barbering is the one thing that has made me come out of my