The interesting thing about people is that we do not like to acknowledge our weaknesses or rather we leverage our weaknesses and get scared to try anything new. We need to be honest for our sake and others. Either way there is a problem, especially if it is about a hairdresser. I tend to have a hard time finding a hair dresser who truly understands fine hair. Seriously, does no one in the world have fine hair like me? This has been a lifelong battle for me. My one gal has selfishly gone away on maternity leave ( can you imagine?!) This leaves me in the precarious position of having to find a new one. I have tried a couple new ones and I do not know what my deal is, I describe in great detail followed up with a picture (above) of what I exactly want; alas I always come out really close to the way I have gone in, the same or sometimes worse. This past week I decided to be proactive and did not just phone but went in in person to talk to the hair dresser before the appointment and I also inquired about her experience with fine hair. Confident in her ability I made the appointment. So I am sitting in the chair and I explain again in great detail, show the picture (again) this is particularly important because I might not have all the hair “lingo” correct and who knows what I might be asking for. I explain about wanting the hair to frame my face. She does the customary head nod, she gets it, and we are off. So far things are looking good, then she announces she has cut her finger, does a few more hair things on my head before declaring she needs a bandaid because she is bleeding all over. My inside voice questions how much blood might now be in my hair. I say nothing. She comes back, bandaid on hand. I graciously allow her a mistake. We resume cutting. At one point when she is cutting my left side she announces she finds doing hair on that side so “awkward”. I begin to question in my mind what does that really mean? She is framing my face at this point. She cuts, drys and then texturizes with thinning shears (which is one of the items my fine hair needs to get volume). I am liking the effect, I did not want length cut off, but I do want layers and the bottom of my hair to be “ uneven” not blunt, not like the bob I’ve been sporting for a while. We look at the almost finished product and I tell her I would like more face framing. She is working on the good side now and proceeds to do a bit more framing when she makes this loud guttural gasp that no one getting their hair done should ever have to experience. She says out loud, “I can’t believe I just did that, I have the wrong scissors.” She had the texturizing shears not the scissors and those shears take out quite a chunk. The front corner of my hair on my face, the longest part, is now missing in action. Yup 3” has just been lobbed off my length right at the front. So much for keeping my length. She compares the 2 sides for length, oh my there is a huge difference. I casually say I once had an asymmetrical cut and she asks me, do I want to leave the 2 sides uneven? I have to explain what a asymmetrical cut is and tell her this is not it so we had better make both sides the same.
I try not to cry as she cuts all my length off and most casually asks me, “Your hair grows fast right?”
To which I reply with an emphatic reply, “No not ever,” because really the truth is, the coming of Jesus and my hair growth could be connected. Now one of the litmus tests for fine hair is how much product the beautician puts in it. The more product on fine hair the faster the hair goes flat because it gets weighed down, the lighter the better. Up until now I had heat treatment, and spray volumizer and then we began with hair spray. Now I’m pretty sure I still have that spray stuck inside my lungs but after 8 full sprays I stopped counting and almost breathing. At this point I was still in hair-loss shock and not able to speak or rather too afraid to speak because I did not trust my words to be kind. The owner of the salon was working right beside us the entire time and heard it all but not saying a word. She looked over quite a few times especially when my gal kept apologizing saying, “I’m so sorry.” Note to self: when your hairdresser keeps repeating the phrase, "the back looks soooo good,” you could be in trouble. I had to suppress huge urges to scream out... “what about the front?” The owner was at the counter when I went up to pay, neither gal brought up the ordeal and to be honest I think I was too stunned and disappointed to say a word. I paid and left. I came home, hating my hair, the amount of product made my head itch almost immediately so I did the only thing I could. I stepped into the shower, washed out the blood, product and ick, climbed up onto my bed with a full box of Kleenex and cried for a good long while. So I have been pondering this story and besides it being a great blog story, what could I learn? Life is like this, we set out with a goal in mind, often we do not get what we envisioned or even asked for.
More often than not we walk away totally dumbfounded, hurt and confused. It struck me that we do this with God. We think He is going to do something a certain way and it goes sideways. What happened? Was He not able to? Did He not have the skills? Does He not care?
I do not think this gal set out to wreck my wonderful hair “vision” but she did not have the skills necessary to do that which I was anticipating.
God does have the skills to do those things that we envision, however I think He and I are often on different pages. He is considering my “character” and I am considering myself. He is more interested in what I will do if I get a bad hair cut rather than the hair cut itself.
Will I choose to humiliate this gal, point fingers and blame or write about it anonymously in a blog and use it as a life lesson?
I get to choose. What will you choose to do with your next bad people experience?
