This is supposed to be a beauty blog. A weekly jaunt into what’s new at Body Tonic, or what’s the latest med spa trend, maybe a spotlight on our awesome employees, or advice on all things skin care. Generally by week’s end I am thinking ahead to what the next topic will be. If I procrastinate, the thought of, What will it be? is still looming on Sunday afternoon. Sometimes the topic is easy: we’ve got a new treatment to highlight. Or there are new uses for fillers that are unbeknownst to many. Sometimes it’s a new season and skincare for the dry weather might be a topic that needs to be addressed. Today, and this week, my brain has been preoccupied with matters outside skin care. But I promise, I’ll get there in the end! The beginning, well, it will be a bit more philosophical. Feel free to scroll:).
I believe in signs. Signs from the universe. Lately some things have been happening to me that the only thing I can glean from them is this: be careful. Be aware. Be more aware.
I feel like I am actually an exceptionally aware and conscious person. But perhaps I’ve been getting lazy in some areas? Distracted? I’m not sure. Just last week I sat in a hospital room with my dad and in the course of conversation I said, You know I’ve never been in a wreck. (I knocked on wood). I’m 40 and I’ve never so much as been in a fender bender. Now, that WAS a hospital table I knocked on so perhaps it wasn’t real wood. But sure enough, on a lunch break, driving home this past Thursday to let out my dog, grab stamps for work, and fax a check, I got rear-ended in my little Fiat. I was in the intolerable Westlake lunch traffic, stopped near Westlake Drive and BAM. My head did the typical whiplash slam forward, slam back. My neck had already been jacked for a few weeks and I had a concussion from a tipsy yoga accident (don’t mix wine and crow pose) a few months ago, so…anyway the first thing I did was grab my neck and tears came to my eyes. It hurt. We pulled into a parking lot. Long story short, the car was fine. The humdinger: the guy who rear ended me was one of the people who was most majorly affected by the floods in Wimberly. I have no desire to give more details about that because it is indeed one of the biggest tragedies I can imagine. But as my day and weekend went on, all I could think was…why this man? Of all the people in the universe who could have rear-ended me at noon in Westlake, why him? What does that mean? Why did he come in to my life? I don’t know the answer to that yet. But I think there is one….
But it made me revisit something I have thought before: why or what series of events causes people to intersect your life and change it in huge or tiny ways? It made me think of all the major people in my life who have changed me, and my circumstances the most. Since this isn’t my personal blog - all evidence to the contrary just now - I will not go into details about all of that. But one person who stood out was Stacey, my boss, and owner of Body Tonic, and how SHE came in to my life…and changed it. It was her brother who I’ve known for more than 20 years. A random conversation with him when he said, I think she’s looking to hire..and I was looking to change employment. A few minutes of a tangential conversation in a gym led me to an amazing job and a whole new life.
I had three goals in changing employment: a job closer to home, a job I’d want to stay at for years, and a job that would challenge me. Stacey provide all of that. This medical spa…it’s so much more than a job. It’s….it’s family, it’s friendship, it’s AMAZING talent, it’s a learning opportunity every single day. It’s meeting new clients and seeing repeat clients, just like old friends coming through the door. I didn’t know anything about fillers or Botox before I started. I’d never had a photofacial or laser hair removal and I didn’t know what laser skin resurfacing was. I’d never heard of Neocutis, I certainly didn’t know why antioxidants are so important, and I figured any old sunscreen was just fine.
Now we Body Tonic girls are about to leave for a little trip to Mexico together where will likely do all the things we tell our clients not to! We will lay out for hours on end, we may not reapply sunscreen as needed, we will drink alcoholic beverages (well not Maricela!) and we will return with freckles, inevitable sun damage, and perhaps some dehydration! We will be in need of IPLs, Whispers, and probably extra water, and products chock full of antioxidants and hyaluronic acid.
In case you’ve done the same to yourself this summer, or plan to in the next few weeks….be glad you’ve just stocked up on all those Trinitis, IPLs, and Whispers from our last flash sale….and come on in when you’re done in the sun, to diminish some of that damage!
This med spa life and what we (they) provide is pretty spectacular. It’s not superficial. It’s not vain. It’s not silly. I know I feel more beautiful since I’ve been apart of this place…not my inner beauty…that’s different work..but I feel like my outer beauty reflects what’s inside and I love that. And we hear that from clients daily. Sometimes tears come to their eyes when they finally see in the mirror what they see in their head…or should I say, when they believe their outside finally matches how the inside feels.
Stacey, who intersected my life 14 months ago, and totally, completely, and positively changed it, was instrumental in imagining and developing Body Tonic as a place for people to come to feel special, and heard, and have their skin care and anti-aging issues addressed and treated professionally by talented wonder women like Leslie, Kit, Iris, Gina, and Maricela. She sure got it right, don’t ya think?