Where did I come from?

Pictou

County is known for a few things, and they aren't their hair and fashion industry. My whole childhood, we had a super smelly paper mill just on the other side of the causeway from where I grew up, in Lyons Brook. It was always a hot topic amongst the grown ups, but i was always quite busy with my head in the clouds, my bare feet on the moss, covered in mud, or paint, or sand and salt water, or some other craft supply. Once, in my early teens, oozing my angst and flooded with emotion, I cut out every letter of a poem I had written from a Teen magazine, and used a hot glue gun to attach the mural-sized poem to my bedroom wall. As with most teens, my relationship with my parents often consisted with a lot of huffing and stomping and feeling misunderstood, but they never tried to change me. I flowed through many phases, from goth to barbie girl, from Royal Conservatory Exams to getting caught drinking and smoking with friends. They never made me feel weird, and I was weird, but they never tried

to lead me away from myself. I didn't realize how special that was until I saw all the folks who didn't have that freedom to be weird, without any reaction from their family members. When I decided to go to hair school after high school graduation, I didn't sense even the slightest disappointment from my parents. Although there was no way they could completely understand me, and through all the disagreements, challenges, and differences between us, they never tried to influence who I was, they just supported me on the path that I chose. They allowed me to live my life, and they continued to live theirs. I'm really grateful for that. It helped me not to hesitate, to trust my intuition, and hair school was where I was heading, not because i knew it was the right choice, but because I felt it. I still feel it today, 20 years later.