In March 2020, I was scheduled to take a trip to Austin for South by Southwest, and then travel a few hours outside the city to visit my family in Texas. I was supposed to leave on a Friday. On Wednesday, I was at the Beautycounter office in LA when questions began regarding a contagious virus. I called my Italian friend who had just returned home from Italy, to inquire and he said, “It’s very bad.”

That night I went home to pack for Austin. The next day, seemingly out of nowhere, Beautycounter decided to close the office. South by Southwest was canceled. And I made a hapless decision: I watched Contagion with Gwyneth Paltrow–and completely freaked out. 

The next morning, I decided to drive to Texas to be with my sister as I had originally planned. I frantically packed up nearly all of my belongings including my Vitamix (once again, if you know, you know) and the ashes of my sweet dog Rider Pearl, my ride-or-die companion of almost 17 years.

I was terrified, not of contracting the virus, but of giving it to my family in the small Texas town where I was headed. I set off down I10 East to Marfa, usually one of my favorite places, but when I arrived I found myself holed up in a hotel room and unable to leave, completely isolated and living on pickles and cheese from the convenience store–the only place in town that seemed to be open.

The next day I got back in my car to continue the journey east. After several hours I turned around, too terrified by the thought of Covid to keep going. I got dressed the next morning and set out again. I got closer to my sister’s home, but as soon as I was 30 minutes away from the end of my nearly 20-hour road trip, I turned my truck around and found a hotel room further West. All the while, my sister was blowing up my phone, wondering where in the world I was. For seven-plus days I went on like this, mostly living in my car, parked outside motel rooms that I had paid for, because I was genuinely too scared to enter a room, still living on pickles and cheese. 

Finally, I made it to my destination– Menard, Texas–where I isolated for three weeks in my sister’s barn apartment until one day my brother-in-law banged on the door, telling me to get out of the room. “You’re freaking out my kids, and you do not have the virus!” he told me. In tears, crying, I walked outside to hear him asking: “Are you that afraid of dying?”

Entangled in those six powerful words is where my new life began.

The past 10 years had caught up with me on that drive to Texas. My breakdown was triggered by Covid, but it was fueled by grief and loneliness, emotions easily magnified in a solo drive across the empty high desert. 

I was in shock. I was shaking off two decades of exhaustion, feeling the weight of 2019–a year that held the loss of my ex-husband, Neal, to suicide–and putting to rest my longest companion to date, my dog, Rider Pearl, on Christmas Day. The end of 2019 was troubling for me, to say the least, and on that drive it all percolated up to what was a complete nervous breakdown on the I10 Expressway. 

Do you remember at the onset of Covid when we were terrified of touch? I’m forever grateful to my nephew who embraced my shattered shell when I was frozen in fear and despair. “It looks like you could use a hug,” he said. Ever since I reluctantly accepted that hug, I’ve been working on the practice of receiving. 

Over the past few years, I’ve sought a reconnection to God. I’ve worked to wade through grief and the letting go of a marriage that I never realized I was still holding onto. I’ve faced the sadness and regret of lost moments through misaligned priorities that I am not willing to lose again.

Covid lifted the veil for so many of us. And in that first year, it was a pause button on “regular” life that made us all look inward and question how we really wanted to spend our time. I held up a mirror that year and asked myself the hard questions about who I was and who I wanted to become.

I spent almost 10 years helping build Beautycounter. I got to experience, firsthand, how the beauty industry has totally changed. What was once revolutionary, is now table stakes, and, in many ways, I felt I had achieved all I set out to accomplish. I loved being part of the changing laws and expanding awareness about how important clean beauty is for our health. I loved working on the chemist’s bench to develop defining textures and shades for our skincare and color products.  It was a dream come true. And I will continue to be Beautycounter’s #1 fan. But I came to realize that I was personally broken by its all-consuming hustle combined with my own personal life.

I have other dreams now that I want to bring to fruition. 

And that brings me here. One of my dreams is to start a community of like-minded individuals who are just as excited about clean beauty and all that it entails as I am. I want to create a space where I can share some of my interests that also extend beyond clean beauty, like regenerative agriculture and land stewardship, which need to be top of mind in our ever-changing environment.

I’m reconnecting with my roots, redefining and rewilding beauty. I am finding meaning in my life’s journey that I hope you’ll benefit from, too.  

I’m interested in learning from you, and I hope to create a space where we can all share and learn from each other, as I believe community is everything. I’d love you to share your stories. What has been your biggest win after the last three years? Where are you headed and what is keeping you from getting there? Reach out on Instagram or email anything you would like to share:  share@christycoleman.com 

Thanks for being here. And if you do nothing else today, go give someone a hug. 

It just might save someone’s life.

Christy Coleman
xx