I’ve watched Working Girl more times than I’m going to admit in writing.

It’s not the plot that gets me, though I love the plot. It’s the hair. It’s the makeup. It’s that opening stretch where Tess is riding the ferry with a mane the size of a weather system, and you can practically hear the aerosol from 1988 hissing through the screen. Big shoulders. Big blush. Big everything. She looks like she’s holding the whole city up with sheer volume.

And every single time I watch it, I think about my mother standing in the doorway of our bathroom, telling me I was allowed one can of hairspray a month.

One. Can.

She was not being cruel. She was being practical, because I was going through cans like other kids went through cereal. Aqua Net was a currency in my house. I’d stand in front of the mirror with the blow dryer and the round brush and the curling iron, and I would put in real effort. Serious effort. The kind that made the whole hallway smell like a chemical plant for an hour afterward.

Here’s the part nobody warned me about.

I have short, fine, thin hair. Always have. The 1980s and the 1990s had exactly one hairstyle in mind, and my hair had a different plan entirely. It wanted to lie flat and be polite. The decade wanted height. Bangs that stood up and saluted. A curl that held from first bell to last bell.

I was trying to build a skyscraper out of tissue paper.

So I’d spray. And it would hold for about forty minutes. And then, somewhere around second period, gravity would win, and I’d spend the rest of the day feeling like I’d shown up as a rough draft of myself.

I remember thinking, honestly thinking, that once I had different hair, I’d be ready. Once it grew out. Once it got thicker. Once I found the right product, the right stylist, the right season. Then I’d walk in looking like Tess on the ferry, and everything else would fall into place.

I was waiting on a full head of waves that was never coming. Not once, not ever, not with any can on any shelf.

What I didn’t understand at fifteen is that the girl in that bathroom already had everything she needed. She had a face she liked. She had opinions. She had a mother who loved her enough to set a hairspray budget. The thing she was waiting on was the one thing that was never going to change, and while she waited, life kept moving right along without her.

I think about that a lot now, and I think about it in your kitchen.

Because I have this conversation constantly, and it almost always sounds the same.

We’d love to move, but we want to redo the kitchen first.

Once the market settles down.

Once the kids finish this school year.

Once we get the garage cleaned out.

Once things calm down a little.

Every one of those is reasonable. Every one of them is also a can of hairspray.

And then there’s the one that doesn’t sound like the others. It comes out slower, and usually quieter.

We’re scared it’s 2008 all over again.

Girl. I feel that one in my whole body.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that fear is silly, because I’ve got my own version of it and it still taps me on the shoulder sometimes. I lived that year. My business closed. I watched the value of everything I owned fall through the floor while I was holding a baby. I know exactly what that particular dread feels like at two in the morning, and I would never make light of it.

Here’s the thing I also know, because I was there for the whole story and not just the scary part.

We survived it. Barring the kind of life circumstance nobody can plan for, people made it through. My house value came back, and then it came back higher than it had ever been. I found a way. So did almost everyone I sat with. It was hard and it was slow and it was nothing anybody would sign up for twice, and we still got to the other side of it.

That fear earned its place at the table. It just doesn’t get to make the decision.

Here’s what I know after doing this since 2010, which, if you’ll recall, was not exactly a calm and settled moment in real estate history. I started in a market that was on fire in the worst possible way. I’ve worked through low rates, high rates, bidding wars, dead months, and every version of “let’s just wait and see” a person can come up with.

The pattern never changes. You wait for things to settle, and then something else shows up. A new number. A new headline. A new reason. Next month brings its own weather, and so does the month after that. That’s history for you. It comes back around every few years wearing a different hairdo, and we act surprised every time.

There has never been a month in my whole career where nothing was happening.

So I ask a different question.

Not when conditions will be perfect. Perfect isn’t on the schedule. The question is what works right now, for you, with the hair you’ve got.

What’s true about your life this fall? What’s true about your finances, your family, your body, your work, your parents, your patience? What do you need your home to do for you in the next five years that it isn’t doing today?

That’s the whole question. The rest is weather.

Now, I want to be clear, because I’m not asking you to be reckless and I’m never going to be the person who tells you to jump just to jump.

Pay attention to the market. Look at the numbers. Read the thing your brother-in-law sent you. Ask me hard questions and expect real answers, because if the timing is genuinely wrong for you, I’ll tell you. I’ve told people to stay put. I’ve told people to wait a year. That’s part of the job, and it’s the part that makes the rest of my advice worth anything.

Being informed matters. Being frozen by information is a different animal.

The trick is knowing which facts change your answer and which ones just keep you busy. Most of what’s out there falls in the second category. It gives you something to hold while you avoid the actual decision, which is a decision only you can make anyway, because you’re the one who lives in the house.

You know your situation better than any headline does.

So here’s what I’d love for you to do this month.

Sit down with the people who share your life and your address, and get honest with each other. Not the polished version. The real one.

I want to be closer to the grandkids. I’m tired of these stairs. This house is too big and I don’t know how to say that. We’re outgrowing this place and I’m scared to look.

Then figure out what’s actually standing between you and that. Write it down. Look at it in daylight.

Some of it will be real, and we can work with real. And some of it will be a can of hairspray you’ve been buying every month for years, trying to build something your life was never asking you to build.

The perfect conditions aren’t coming. The good news is that you don’t need them. You need clear eyes, an honest look at your own situation, and somebody in your corner who’ll tell you the truth about both.

One more thing, since we’re being honest.

I still use hairspray. My hair is still short, still fine, still doing exactly what it has always done. And to this day, the second Trevor hears that first hiss from the bathroom, he flips on the fan and holds his breath like a man going underwater. The boys do it too now. They learned it from him. The whole house has a system.

So I’m not telling you to give up the hairspray. I love the stuff. I’m telling you to stop waiting on it to do a job it was never going to do.

Tess didn’t wait for a better ferry. She showed up with the hair she had and got to work.

Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.

Joyful real estate that feels like home.

WITH JOY,

P.S. What’s Jennuine Living, again?

We’re a gaggle of REALTORS(R), Lenders, and Creatives that makes joyful real estate feel like home.

We bring creativity, peace of mind, and a sense of delight into one of life’s biggest transitions, so that our clients’ experience:

-> More joy, less stress and fewer “oh crap” moments.

-> No guesswork, no surprises, just honest communication.

-> Connection first, here, you are family.

We love new friends, so visit our website, see a bit of our good work for our community, or follow us on the ‘Gram to join the family.