Alex and I are both two weeks out from our double vaccination, and today we hugged for the first time ever!
Shall we discuss how Alex arrived at Red Pony?
Well, Alex’s kids go to the same school as my kids, so to me she was just a mom from the school who was into jogging, and naturally I assumed we had nothing common as I am allergic to jogging and all other forms of exercise.
After studying and working in mental health for over 20 years in Canada, Europe and the States (she hates when I bring up Harvard, so I bring it up any chance I can! I’m fun like that!), she knew enough to read the signs and knew that one more year of work in this fiels would lead her to burnout. Now, friends, she is very adamant that she did not “retire” because she burned-out, rather she retired *before* burning out. (She gets more maaaaaaaaad about getting that fact wrong than she does about me telling everyone that she went to Harvard! Ha!)
At school pick-up one day Alex came up to me all excited because she realized that I own Red Pony and it is one of her favourite stores. As we know, friends, compliments are my favourite thing, and apparently all that I need to start offering people jobs! (Just kidding!) (But, also, maybe not kidding now that I think of think of it. Hi Shaney, hi Kennedy, hi Teaghan!) A while later, after a particularly successful Instagram post, she messaged me “Can I come work for you?!”. Now, at this point in our story, friends, to me she was just a mom who jogs -like for fun or something- and a psychologist with a real career, and I really did not know her, so I was all like “Um, haha?” and who the F is this lady?!
More time passes and she pops into the shop every once in a while and one day tells me that in her own therapy her “Happy Place” is Anthropologie (I mean, whose isn’t, amirite?) and that she believes in making major life changes towards what brings you joy etc. It was sweet and super relatable.
Then the shut-down happened. Let’s skip over this chapter!
Then, it was time to reopen. But, there was not alot of money, we couldn’t open full-time, there were new rules and everything was a mess; who would be willing to work that hard for something they had no stake in? WELL! Only a person of pure heart who knew her true Happy Place was a sunny clothing shop with a butcher block counter which if you squint hard enough could look like Anthropologie!
OK, so let’s fast-forward to today (because this is turning into more work than I expected and I am lazy and, frankly, had planned to sneak in a bag of chips before dinner where I will push my salad around on the plate a bit while telling the kids they didn’t eat enough t get dessert). Although I have accidentally drank out of her coffee mug so many times that she finally just bought me one with my name on it, we have been very careful for over a year to minimize our cross-contamination. And let me tell you, it’s pretty tough to remember that your mug is the one with a letter “Y” on it, and it’s also pretty tough to watch your team-mate cry during a bad day or give you the most thoughtful gift and not be able to hug them. But today we finally hugged!! It was awkward and we will probably never do it again. (Pffft, kidding!)
