Somewhere to Be Human

Some friendships do not begin where you expect them to.

Mine began in a salon chair.

Leslie had just moved to the Austin area from The Woodlands.

She came into my salon looking for a new hairdresser.

I don't remember the exact date.

I am not sure it matters.

What I remember is her.

Leslie always has a smile on her face.

She is animated when she talks.

Positive. Full of life. Easy to talk to.

It did not take long for our conversations to move past hair.

We had a lot in common.

We both love people deeply.

We both have big hearts.

We are both recovering people pleasers.

And somewhere between the blow dryer, the flat iron, and conversations about ordinary life, a client became a friend.

Before my divorce, Leslie had already become someone I trusted.

There is something unique about the relationship between a hairstylist and a client.

For nearly thirty years, my salon has been one of my stages.

People have sat in my chair and told me about marriages and babies.

Celebrations and heartbreaks.

Dreams and disappointments.

I have been invited into some incredibly sacred parts of people's lives.

But sometimes the person behind the chair needs a safe place too.

Leslie became one of mine.

During that season she was coming in about once a week for a blowout.

She has naturally curly hair, and for a while she wore it straight.

Which meant I got to see her almost every week.

Looking back, I know what a gift that rhythm was.

Because some weeks I was okay.

And some weeks I wasn't.

There were days when life felt particularly heavy.

I would look at my book and see that Leslie was coming in.

And somehow, just knowing that someone I loved and trusted was about to walk through that door gave me a little something extra to make it through the day.

There wasn't always a grand conversation.

Sometimes it was a hug.

Sometimes it was encouragement.

Sometimes it was simply being seen.

Leslie knew how deeply I loved my husband.

She knew leaving wasn't easy for me.

She knew there were parts of me that were heartbroken.

Confused.

Hopeful.

Scared.

Probably contradictory at times.

And she never judged a single piece of it.

She listened.

She shared her own flaws and her own victories.

She let me see her humanity too.

And because she recognized parts of herself in me, she could challenge me in ways I could actually hear.

She became a trusted friend.

And in a lot of ways, a mentor.

Not because she stood above me with all the answers.

Because she stood beside me.

Somewhere in those conversations she helped me understand something that sounds so simple today.

I was just a human being having a human experience.

I did not have to get every part of it right.

For so much of my adult life I had carried titles I desperately wanted to live up to.

Wife.

Mom.

Business owner.

The strong one.

The responsible one.

And somewhere along the way I confused doing those things well with needing to do them perfectly.

When some of those titles started to change, I had to ask a question I had not asked in a very long time.

Who am I underneath all of them?

Leslie never answered it for me.

That is one of the things I love most about her.

She did not push.

She is an incredible cheerleader, but she never tried to decide where I should go.

She simply invited me inward.

And slowly, I started finding her.

The dreamer.

The creator.

The woman with a voice that needed to be heard.

The woman who had things she wanted to write and songs she wanted to sing.

The woman who was beginning to understand that she had a responsibility to the people she loved...

and to herself.

And to whatever work God had placed inside her to do.

I did not need permission to shine my light.

I get to shine my light.

There is a difference.

Maybe one of the most beautiful things another person can do for us is recognize our light while we are still learning how to see it ourselves.

Leslie did that for me.

She cheered for the woman I was becoming without ever telling me who that woman should be.

And eventually Byron became part of this story too.

Once he retired and stopped traveling back and forth to Houston, he needed a hairdresser.

He started coming to me for haircuts.

And somewhere along the way he became much more than Leslie's husband or another client.

Together, they became family.

Byron doesn't give me a lot of advice.

But when he does, I listen.

His background in finance has made him someone I trust with important business decisions.

His steady presence has made him someone I know I can count on.

They have shared pieces of their own journey with me too.

Hard things and beautiful things.

Those stories belong to them, so I will leave them for them to tell.

But knowing their humanity made me more comfortable with mine.

Our friendship didn't stop when that difficult season ended.

It kept growing.

This year I brought together a group of women I call the Divine Sisterhood.

Women whose hearts and lives feel aligned in this particular season.

Leslie opened her home to us.

Of course she did.

That's who she is.

And now, as Welcome Home grows from something that lived inside me into something I am preparing to share with the world, our families are becoming intertwined another way.

I have asked Leslie's daughter to be my editor on the project.

That means more to me than I can explain.

I have no desire to build something meaningful and arrive at some imaginary top surrounded by strangers.

If God lets these songs, these stories, this book, or any of the dreams I am carrying become something bigger than I can imagine, I want to look around and recognize the faces.

I don't want to make it to the top and then invite the people I love to come celebrate.

I want us to go there together.

I know there will be people I have to hire along the way.

But whenever I can, I want to pull the people I love into the story.

Because they are already part of it.

Recently I gave a speech about the community that carried me through a season when I did not always have the strength to carry myself.

Leslie and Byron were part of that community.

And I am not sure they fully understand what that means to me.

Maybe that is why I am writing this.

There were no capes.

No dramatic rescue.

No single moment I can point to and say, that was the day everything changed.

It was much quieter than that.

It was showing up.

Listening.

A smile walking through the salon door on a day I desperately needed one.

A hug.

A conversation.

An encouraging word.

An occasional challenge.

Unwavering faith in me.

And friendship without conditions.

Sometimes the people who help carry us through the hardest chapters of our lives don't even realize they are doing it.

They are simply there.

And somehow their presence gives us enough strength to take another step.

Leslie, you never asked me to become someone new.

You simply gave me a safe place to be completely myself.

You listened without judgment.

You shared your own humanity.

You challenged me when I needed it and cheered for me without ever pushing.

And somewhere in that safety, I started peeling away the layers.

Not to reinvent myself.

Not to become somebody else.

To uncover the woman who had been there all along.

The dreamer.

The creator.

The voice.

The light.

So when I talk about the people who helped carry me when I couldn't quite carry myself...

please know I am talking about you.

Both of you.

Your unwavering faith in me and the friendship we have built are among the most beautiful gifts of my life.

I will cherish them for the rest of it.

Thank you, Leslie.

Thank you, Byron.

Maybe that is what the best friendships do.

They don't show us who to become.

They love us while we remember who we already are.

With light and love,

Kristi J

Welcome Home