It’s been years since I’ve formally hosted a dinner party. Not even for Thanksgiving. Not for Christmas. For a long time, I’ve joked that I have hosting PTSD—and honestly, there’s truth in that.

As I stood in my kitchen this week, ironing linen napkins—my monogrammed linen napkins—and preparing for a proper adult dinner party, something caught in my chest. I hadn’t done this in so long. Not like this. Not with intention and ceremony. Not with the level of presence I once brought to hosting.

Each napkin I folded had a K and an M stitched into the fabric. My current initials, sure. But that’s not the whole story. And I find myself wondering… if someone asks, what will I say?

The real story is this: the K is for Kelly, and the M is for McCullough, yes. But it’s also a nod to a previous version of me. A life where my last name used to be King. A life that began with a man named Frank, who was both my partner in love and my partner in building a dream.

We ran a retreat center together. We lived, worked, hosted, cooked, and held space under one roof. And while it was a beautiful chapter, it was also a brutal one. We were young, and we didn’t know about boundaries yet. We turned the thing we loved most—gathering, food, fellowship—into a business. We over-delivered. We overworked. We took everything personally. We lived in fear of getting it wrong, when in truth, we were already giving more than enough.

The art of hosting—the joy of it—was something Frank’s Italian family passed over to me. They taught me how to set a table, how to build a menu, how to take time with a cheese board. They taught me the sacredness of a Sunday dinner, the pleasure of shared food, and the beauty in small details. Before Frank, I knew nothing about cuisine. We traveled the world together, learning, tasting, cooking, curating. He was the chef, but I learned alongside him. It was the beginning of my adult life, and the foundation of my love for beautiful meals and intentional space.

That’s what I carry in the stitching of these napkins.

And while my current husband, Ryan, doesn’t know that chapter of me intimately—doesn’t know the depth of what it cost me to lose it and the courage it’s taken to return to it—I am here, now, reclaiming it.

I’m hosting again.

And I’ll be honest, it’s not easy. It’s not effortless like it once was. I’m also the mother of a toddler and a one-year-old puppy, which means trying to clean a house and fold napkins while someone’s crying for snacks and dragging toys across the floor. It means needing backup just to carve out enough calm to prepare. And yes, it took a babysitter, a dog sitter, and a chef-prepared meal to make this evening even remotely possible.

But I’m doing it. On my terms.

This dinner is my quiet way of honoring the woman I used to be, the man who shaped so much of what I know, and the me who has continued to carry those skills, that care, that passion—even when I’ve been too tired or too heartbroken to use them.

This dinner is for all the parts of me: the parts that have hosted a thousand times before, the parts that were burned out by it, and the parts that are ready to do it again—but this time, with softness. With support. With less urgency. With more truth.

So if someone asks what the K and M stand for, I suppose I could just say “They’re my initials.”

But the real answer is: it’s a love letter. To the life that shaped me. To the ones I’ve lost. And to the table I’m setting now—with so much more tenderness.