I'm Alive

I have been going to the same guy--John--for haircuts for a few years now. Savana discovered him at Fantastic Sam's shortly after he moved to Asheville from Florida where he had a successful salon that was featured in magazines and won awards and where he rented out booths and dealt with management issues and owned a huge house and worked crazy long hours and made great money and...

And then he and his partner came to Asheville on a whim for vacation and decided they loved it and that they were tired of the rat race. And so, John sold his award-winning salon, packed up his life, and moved to Asheville with only a dream in his pocket: no home, no job. And that's how it came to be that Savana met him at Fantastic Sam's where he landed shortly after his arrival.

I must say, I admire such courage.

Seriously.

Who does that?

John does. And others, actually. Lots of others who decide the dream is worth more than the comfort of their regular.

This past week I was in desperate need of a trim. I'm like that--I wait until I'm desperate, until I'm afraid I'm going to burn my hair off because the ends are so dead that I have to singe my hair to style it. And so I gave John a call, set up an appointment, and found myself chatting it up with him a couple of days later. We're friends now and conversation comes easy these days. And so, as I sat in that chair while he trimmed my fried ends, he told me how he is struggling right now. Finances are tight and his partner's health is failing.

The dream has dimmed. His brow is creased with worry.

"Be thankful for the struggle, John," I said.

When we struggle? We know we are alive.

This past fall when the evenings got cooler, Roy would coerce me into tagging along on golf cart rides. We would lazily wind around the academy roads and check out all of our usual sights. I would bundle up in a blanket as, the older I get, the less I tolerate cold. What's with that? Sometimes I feel like my grandma. Anyway, as we turned to head towards home and headed down the hill directly in front of our house, Roy would plaster the "gas" pedal all the way to the ground, catapulting the golf cart into rocket speeds, my hair flying back behind me and the cool hair bursting on my face. "Stop!" I would squeal and Roy would inevitably yell, "This is how you know you're alive!"

Dreams are made of struggle.

When I feel the most alone...
When the winds of strife are tearing at my face...
When sleepless nights haunt...

That's when I know that the dream is just on the horizon.

That's when I know...

I'm alive.