Something has changed.

Sorry about the absence this week. I've been distracted, partly with redesigning and adding some new content for the story. I hope you like the more simplified format because, let's be fair, the wallpaper wasn't really me.

This feels like the story is starting to take shape. This feels more like me. Simple and organized, although not nearly enough. I have a place that I can put my progress to come back to compare to. I can have a different place to put all the pictures I've been taking at school. This is doing two things for me. 

I have a place to compare to ensure that I'm getting better.

I have another place to remind myself why I need to stay motivated.

This is hard. Harder than I ever thought before. And it's not the muscle memory or the getting past it being awkward, but just the nerves that I'm still facing. I have two big haircuts soon. Hailie is on Friday, and my mom is within the next few weeks. Hailie knows that I won't generally be cutting women's hair, but she wants to see me do well so she's letting me cut hers. I'm incredibly nervous, but I've been trying to refocus on how I can get excited about it. The only way I can learn women's haircuts is by doing women's haircuts. Plus, it's always better to have more experience than less.

My mom's cut though. Holy hell does that make me nervous. My mom has short hair, so to be really honest it's going to be more like the styles I will be doing consistently, but it has nothing to do with that. My mom cut my hair growing up, and even a few times as an adult. This is the first time that I get to do that for her, and that's an odd feeling for me. Good, but not quite describable.

But today, I learned some incredible feather razor techniques, and I think I found my new hobby. Everybody has something within barbering that they love doing the most. Whether it's being great at doing fades, designs, clipper work, beards, color, hot towel shaves, shear over comb, or whatever, you find something that you like the most. When I was practicing with the feather razor, it felt like listening to jazz. I could get into it without over thinking, and it turned out better than most other things I've picked up so far. But then Charles cleaned up a haircut I did last week, using only his feather razor on the side.

My mind exploded out the side of my head.

Everything he was saying made more sense than anything up to this point, and I watched him for almost an hour making it look effortless. I'm sure when I attempt this on Hailie's hair my opinion will change about the ease. I'm setting myself a goal though, we're going to try and do her entire haircut with 100% razor. 

If you're going to dream, dream big. But if you dream it, you have to chase it.