I’m starting to wonder if I’m becoming high maintenance. Have I gradually turned into a diva over the last number of years without knowing it?

It used to be pretty easy for me to keep on top of myself and my life. But as I was entering appointments into my new online calendar, I noticed there are a whole lot of people I depend upon to keep my life together – people that never used to be on my radar. Just a note here: this does not include friends and family. They help me keep my life on track in many other ways not related to this blog post.

Jana comes to our house once a week and makes it shine. She does a fabulous job of all the things I don’t have time to do on a regular basis but that really do need doing very regularly. I’m fully appreciative of the value of someone who can do a top notch job with cleaning and we have found a gem in Jana.

There’s also my French instructor. In hopes of being able to offer our craft supply customers from Quebec at least a semblance of service in French, I’ve been taking lessons in conversation and grammar for the better part of two years. Unfortunately, I don’t use it enough on an ongoing basis that as soon as I stop with the lessons, I can feel my comfort level dissipate – and at a much more rapid pace than when I was building it up!

Sharon is our bookkeeper. Without her, doing the books for two different businesses would long have driven me right round the bend – especially since I am REALLY not a numbers person. At all. In any way shape or form. And not only does she keep things on the straight and narrow, she also teaches me useful skills. You can’t imagine how excited I was the day I learned how to file payroll deductions and GST/PST remittances online! Ok, perhaps this is an indicator that I should maybe get out more, but that’s a topic for another post.

Then there’s my aesthetician. Waxing of all sorts, as well as eyelash tints, pedicures, facials and other beauty treatments, are essential to health and well-being as far as I’m concerned. Wherever possible, I try to make regular visits to the spa part of my schedule. And I didn’t think about how accustomed I had gotten to my routine until my aesthetician – whom I’ve been seeing for probably about three years – announced that she was leaving the spa and going back to school. Good on her, but man, does that disrupt the even flow of my life. After all, there’s a lot of trust invested in a relationship with someone that you let put hot wax near your…well, you get the drift.

Kyle is my web guru. I depend on him for all sorts of technical, webby IT things – website hosting, domain registrations, software upgrades, managing coding modifications to our online shopping cart and more. Between the two of us, Bill and I have four separate websites so there’s a lot to manage …and a lot that could go wrong that is way beyond our understanding, never mind skill to repair.

Hair stylists are also important. I don’t get my hair cut as often as I probably should, now that it has grown out again and doesn’t need as much regular shaping, but when I do, I like going to the same stylist over and over again. She knows what I like and how adamant I am not have a style that requires blow drying, straightening, curling or other intervention of the heated kind to look good.

And then there’s my trainer. Ok, that does make sound a bit like a diva, doesn’t it? Taylor is the newest addition to my roster of “life helpers”. I started personal training sessions about 18 months ago as a way of combating stress and getting my sleep patterns back onto an even keel. The fact that I gained muscle, tone and endurance was enough of an added benefit to make me keep going back for more. I must admit though, as much as I like the results (and Taylor himself), he’s my most expensive habit. Each time I reach the end of another set of sessions, I debate long and hard whether I can afford to (or not to as the case may be) spend the money to continue.

I depend on all of these people in some way to help my life run smoothly and sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to do all this by myself. Truth be told, I didn’t really. Life was much simpler before my husband and I became entrepreneurs and launched not one but two businesses. Life was much simpler before we started getting involved in websites and online shopping. Life was also much simpler before I turned 30, my metabolism went to hell and my body started needing more care and attention than I was used to giving it.

So am I a diva? Or is it ok to depend on the expertise of others for help and the more, the merrier? The jury’s still on that one in my mind, but what do you think? What kind of people do you depend on in your life?