My mom

Last night I wrote about being nervous about cutting my mom's hair. I think it was just that I was nervous for my next haircut.

1:10 pm - I get a walk in. This is my second walk in, so I'm slightly less nervous than my first, but then I actually look at the guys hair. This is not the soft fine downy white hair of a man who has had a lifetime of experience. This is a guy in his 30's, with incredibly thick dark hair that responds in a way I had never experienced. I do the haircut and Ruben comes over. 

"That cut turned out awesome! Did you get a before and after?"

Nope, I forgot it the second time around just like I did the first go round. I realized that with my friends and family coming in, I had control of the situation. I know what I need to prepare for, because mentally I already know what the before image is in my head, and I have an idea of what the after picture will look like. But every person that comes in is such a new discovery that I have to immediately respond to, so I completely  zone out on what do I need to do in order to get more knowledge out of this cut. But that's not an excuse. I need to start taking credit for what I do.

2:47pm - Another slip. What the hell? I just finished cleaning up my station, and we're only supposed to be getting one cut a day right now with how long it's taking us to get through them (you can't blame the rookies for trying). I turn the slip over to read the guests name.

Brenda Bentley.

My eyes got huge, and everything I was thinking about last night just rushed through my head. So I cut my mom's hair. And it was unexpected, and I couldn't have prepared for it, and it was something that I've been waiting for. And she told me "I didn't want to tell you about it because I knew you'd just worry yourself over it, so just do it. Because you know what, hair grows back."

Hair has always played a role in the relationship between my mom and I. It was never something that we talked about before today, but writing this down I'm connecting a lot of dots. She always cut my hair, my brother's hair, all the military guys hair, and even my friends. I was telling her during the cut that I was reminiscing on a specific time when we lived in Hawaii and she cut my hair, and my friend Gene's hair. The only reason I remembered was because we had both posed for a picture making awkward little scrawny arm muscle flexes with our new high and tights. She told me that this is what she had always wanted to do, and that she had loved doing it.

"You're living out my dream"

I wasn't as nervous though. I was able to get that out with my last haircut. This time I was just hanging out with my mom. And all the things that I forgot, Karlo and Ruben had my back to help me get through it faster. It was the most relaxed I had actually been since being at school, and it's the fastest cut that I have done thus far. 

I am a month shy of having been an adult for 11 years, and I can't think of a time that I better understood what it is that I want to do more than this.

I walk her out but before she left she took a picture of the two of us. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was tell Hailie. And as soon as I did she smiled the way she does, and then she told me that she knew and that I should go in the bedroom.