The Friend Who Kept Showing Up

Today I want to tell you about my friend Elizabeth.

We met when we were about fourteen years old.

She was one of those friends I always had so much fun with. We were constantly laughing, and when I think about those years, one story still makes me laugh.

We were probably sixteen or seventeen, long before I'd even thought about going to beauty school, when Elizabeth asked me to trim her hair.

Now, if you've ever tried to cut someone's hair when you have absolutely no idea what you're doing—and you're definitely not using the right scissors—you probably know where this is going.

I cut one side.

It was a little crooked.

So I cut the other side.

Still crooked.

A little shorter.

Then a little shorter.

And...yeah.

It got a little too short.

But from what I remember, it looked fabulous.

Her mom did not agree.

She thought I'd intentionally made Elizabeth's hair look bad.

The truth was much less interesting.

I just had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Elizabeth and I still laugh about it today.

Who knew that a few years later I'd actually become a hairstylist?

Through high school, we were almost always together.

We laughed.

We cried.

We had our hearts broken.

We grew up.

And somewhere along the way, Elizabeth became more than one of my high school friends.

She became family.

That's what happens with some people. There isn't one moment when the title changes. They just keep showing up until one day you realize they've been woven into your family all along.

When my Uncle Ronnie died, Elizabeth was at his funeral.

I didn't ask her to come.

She just showed up.

That's Elizabeth.

Years earlier, I had gotten married and started my family. About seven years later, Elizabeth got married at the exact same place I had.

This time, I got to show up for her.

I stood beside her as one of her bridesmaids, and Wyatt and Anabelle were her ring bearer and flower girl.

We hosted a fun bachelorette party and then headed to San Diego's Gaslamp District for the real celebration.

Life kept moving.

When I moved to Hawaii, Elizabeth and her firstborn daughter came to visit me.

When I eventually moved to Austin, she came again—this time with her husband and children.

Different cities.

Different seasons.

Growing families.

And somehow, the friendship stayed.

These days, when I go home to California, I don't get nearly as much time with Elizabeth as I'd like. There are so many people I love there, and I'm always trying to squeeze everyone into too few days.

But with Elizabeth, it doesn't seem to matter.

Give us an hour and somehow we're fourteen again.

We laugh.

We talk.

We pick right back up.

No explanations required.

No catching up on who we used to be before we can understand who we are now.

And lately, something new has happened between us.

We've started sharing the deeper parts of our journeys.

Not just what happened.

What it changed in us.

We've both spent parts of our lives trying to make everyone else happy.

We've both carried grief.

We've both worn titles that, at different points, became so heavy that we lost pieces of ourselves underneath them.

And we've both had to find our way back.

Our paths look very different.

Elizabeth became a marriage and family therapist and life coach.

My path took me through motherhood, owning a salon, entrepreneurship, business brokerage, writing, music, and now Welcome Home.

For a long time, those pieces of my life felt completely unrelated.

Now I can see the thread running through all of them.

People.

Whether I'm standing behind a salon chair, sitting across from a business owner, writing a story, singing a song, or speaking to a room full of women, I've always been drawn to people.

Their stories.

Their dreams.

Their heartbreaks.

The things they don't always say out loud.

Elizabeth has that same heart.

She's been one of my biggest cheerleaders.

And I hope she knows I've always been one of hers.

There are seasons of my life, though, when I know I was carrying so much of my own grief that I may not have shown up for her in all the ways I wish I had.

That breaks my heart a little.

But Elizabeth has given me something else throughout our friendship.

Grace.

The kind that doesn't keep score.

The kind that allows two people to grow and change and still recognize each other when they meet again.

Maybe that's part of why this chapter of our friendship feels different.

We're not fourteen anymore.

We're not the girls laughing through high school or figuring out heartbreak.

We're two women who have lived some life.

We've loved people.

Raised children.

Built careers.

Carried grief.

Made mistakes.

Changed.

And found our way back to ourselves.

Now we're able to look across the table at one another and say:

I see you.

Not who you used to be.

Not the titles you've carried.

You.

And as we move into this next chapter, I have a feeling Elizabeth and I are going to do some big things together.

We don't know exactly what that looks like yet.

Maybe retreats.

Maybe conversations.

Maybe simply creating spaces where other people can begin finding their own way home.

We'll see.

Because Elizabeth and I are very different people.

But we have the same heart.

And that heartbeat has always been people.

Helping them.

Encouraging them.

Making room for them.

Showing up for them.

Only this time, we've learned something important.

We can show up for other people without disappearing ourselves.

And maybe that's one more thing these two fourteen-year-old girls had to grow up to learn.

Welcome Home

Kristi J