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| Working hard to get those votes! |
Dear Clients and Friends,
I trust you are well and enjoying the season of gratitude as best one can.
How time has flown since my retirement of full-time hair services and salon ownership.
I am writing this Blog to shamelessly ask you to vote for me in a contest.
When I enrolled in the contest I did not realize what an undertaking it would be.
I am committed to see it through to the end!
The contest is FabOver40, it is both a beauty contest and a fundraiser for breast cancer.
Here is the link to the contest: FabOver40
My profile page on the site gives you information as to why I would like to win and here I am sharing more details.
Your Body And Your Health
Oh the body.
As I write this story I am 63 years old, my hair is salt and pepper, I carry more weight than I would prefer. Sometimes when I see a picture of myself, I am pleased, at other times I am not pleased at all.
I am quite used to looking at myself. I have stood in front of a mirror for most of my adult life. I was a hairstylist, a mirror is one of our tools. A tool I would use to help my clients see themselves in a more beautiful way.
When I was a child I was mostly healthy and my two siblings often were not. I remember going to our local doctors office with them and our mum and wishing that the doctor would examine me as well. Our doctor was an Indian man, he was very patient and kind. Sometimes we would have to wait a very longtime to see him. My mum said we needed to be patient because you never know how sick the person before you might be and the doctor should not be rushed for them or for us, when it is our turn. This expectation was very helpful for me years later when I had to wait for long periods of time at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, where I got my first prothesis over several visits for fittings and painting and adjustments.
Before my prothesis came into my life I had experienced almost no illnesses, except for the usual minor childhood scrapes and one bicycle accident in Wales. I ended up with a small scar above my lip from a speedy ride down our driveway which resulted in the bicycle scrape. Perhaps an omen of what was to come later for me. Our family had a second home in Wales in the Cwm Rheidol Valley near Aberystwyth. It was truly an idyllic place. The house we owned was over 100 years old on one side and over several hundred years old on the other side. It was called Harvest Hall, it sat in the a beautiful green valley with a river running past it, we loved it. It really was wonderful to grow up with this home in our lives.
You might be wondering about my prothesis. It is a shell that sits over my right eye. My eye was damaged in a head-on collision car accident in London near our home. I was 17 years old. This accident severely damaged my eye. It changed my life. It happened on a rainy night, I had gone to a dance with Lionel, my sort of boyfriend at the time, he was Burmese and actually a friend of my most recent proper boyfriend, Jon. Jon had been crazy about me in a possessive sort of way. Lionel it turns out was also a bit possessive, we had gone to a dance before heading into London to meet friends of his for a late dinner. Lionel was annoyed that I danced with a friend of mine. This turned out to be a good thing because I ignored Lionel as he told me that I was a flirt. I turned my head and looked out of the passenger window. I did not see the car that hit us, I was not wearing a seatbelt. I flew forward and I hit the door seam between the passenger door and the windshield. The glass cut the right side of my face and my right eye. It did not cut both of my eyes or my entire face. The impact of the windshield class cutting my eye and my face was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced in my entire life. I had an out of body experience, I left my body and I looked down upon myself. In that moment of sheer agony I embraced the will to have the sheer determination that I would be okay.
I remember a man saying to me, “you’ll be alright love”, he was a witness, he had opened the door to the car. I was digging my fingers into his arm to mange the pain. I remember seeing Lionel looking horrified and pale. I remember being put into the ambulance and going to what would be the first of two hospitals. I remember being lifted from the ambulance to the stretcher for the emergency room. I remember seeing a needle and thread.
I remember being moved to the second hospital Moorfields Eye Hospital and being worried that I didn’t have any knickers on, they took them off in the first hospital. I remember people being really concerned as they talked very quietly and repeated over and over “it’s alright love.” It was not.
At Moorfields they took me into surgery and worked to save the sight in my right eye. It was not to be. They kept what they could of the eye itself and put 5 stitches in it and then another 87 stitches in my face. I know because the nurse and I counted them when she took them out. My surgery had been over 8 hours and when I regained consciousness a round faced lady with a very tight perm was smiling at me and said, “hello love, we’ve be wondering when you would wake up.”
I felt deeply sad and wildly giddy to be alive.
After a day or two I asked for a mirror, the nurses were very worried to show me my face. I insisted. When I saw myself with a big eye patch covering my right eye and a mess of stitches covering the right side of my face, I smiled. I still looked like me, felt like me and I knew I could face whatever I would have too. I could still see me, I could still see you, I could still dance and see the trees.
I knew I had a long road ahead of me, I was 17.
It has not been easy or hard. It has been both. I have hated my situation and I have been eternally grateful that I could see and that I looked almost the same as I did before.
How brave I was. I marvel at that.
I marvel at myself at age 63. I caught up with my siblings I have health concerns. I have tachycardia, I take a pill twice a day to keep my heart from running too fast. I have vitiligo, it is not particularly obvious, because of that I am barely conscious of it. I think of myself as a dappled human like a dappled daschund, marked and marvelous. One of my Sri Lankan cousins, Christopher has vitiligo and so did his mother, my aunt Peggy, whom I never met. Christopher told me I looked like his mother, I liked hearing that. Christopher visited me about 20 plus years ago, that was the first and only time we have spent time together so far. It was a delightful time.
I am pre-diabetic thus I should probably lose a few pounds or at least not gain anymore weight as I glide into my late sixties, seventies and beyond, if I am so lucky.
I swim, I do yoga, I walk, I “work” on my mental and emotional health. I eat mostly well. I am a vegetarian. I love sweets and wine.
I am embracing aging as gracefully as possible with my gorgeous head of mostly salt and pepper hair, my dappled skin, my tricky heart, my prothesis and my tummy.
I give you all of me until I am no more and then I leave you my smile and my laughter and my words.
Today:
I am continuing to work one-day-a-week behind the chair. Always feel free to contact me if you would like to rotate into my schedule or to have an occasional appointment.
In stock I have Framesi Products to retail and No Nothing Products can be purchased via my affiliate link here: No Nothing
I truly miss seeing all of you. I am grateful for all the years of patronage, stories and beauty we shared.
Happy Holidays and best wishes,
Love, Suzanne.
To contact me:
My cell is 510-545-2955 or they can email me at suzanne@suzannevanhouten.com
For future appointments call 510-545-2955 or email, suzanne@suzannevanhouten.com or click here to book online.
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