 I met James Martin while home (San Jose, CA) visiting for my sister's missionary farewell. I lived in Provo, UT, at the time and was attending hair school. While I was home, my sister wanted me to go with her to the Young Adult Ward, so I obliged. My friend Andrew came up to me and said I had to meet this guy from Florida. “He played football at Vanderbilt University and is currently a 49er football player.” I brushed off my friend and thought nothing of it. Later that week, I attended the Young Adult dance with my friend Jessica. We met the infamous 49er, and needless to say… we were both unimpressed. He was so arrogant and only wanted to talk about himself and how cool and successful he was. I went back to Provo and didn’t give him a second thought.
A couple of months later, as I was finishing up hair school, I found a lump in my breast and quickly settled my affairs in UT to prepare for surgery back in California to have the lump removed. When I moved home, I began attending the Young Adult Ward. In the short few months since my last visit, there were only a handful of friends remaining in the ward as others had moved away. However, amongst these friends was the 49er, James. As I settled into life back in California, the new addition to our friend group meant I spent more and more time with James. Eventually, I decided he wasn’t so bad after all. We started dating in May of 2002, and it was immediately clear that this relationship was moving with the intention of marriage. Everything happened fast—faster than I had any real experience with. I was heavily pursued. James was grand in his gestures, confident, and very convincing. I was swept off my feet. At the time, he was in a lucrative career and had the money to impress me. He knew exactly how to use it. Baseball games in San Francisco, flowers delivered just because, fancy restaurants, spontaneous lunch dates—things that felt glamorous and grown-up to a girl who had never been courted like that before. I had never experienced that level of attention, and I was impressionable. Looking back, I can see how intoxicating it all was. There were moments early on that gave me pause. Conversations about men’s and women’s roles in marriage that didn’t sit right with me. Statements that felt rigid, outdated, or dismissive. But I brushed them aside. I told myself he was joking. Or worse, I convinced myself that I could change that part of him. I cringe now at how easily I minimized my own discomfort. But at the time, I was in love—or at least in love with the version of the future I was being shown. As we grew more serious, marriage became a constant topic of conversation. Plans were discussed openly and often. We were set to travel to Florida in July to meet his family. He had already left for Florida on a business trip, and I was scheduled to fly out a few days later. The night before my flight, he spoke with my parents and told them he had changed his plan. Instead of proposing in Santa Cruz with my family, like he had planned, he said he wanted to propose in Florida with his family present. Since we would eventually live in California near my family, he felt it was important for his family to be part of that moment. At the time, it sounded thoughtful. Reasonable. Even considerate. However, I'm pretty sure my parents started to see it for what it was—the first real lesson in how easily plans could be rewritten, decisions reframed, and moments redirected, all while being presented as acts of love.
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 Today has been one of the most emotionally draining days I’ve had in a long time. Tears have consumed me, and the ache in my chest feels unbearable. It’s been a year since I’ve seen my son. What’s worse, he won’t even answer my calls or respond to my messages. My ex-husband has made it a point to remind me that my son allegedly “hates” me, claiming that my son now sees the “truth” about me and the supposed lies I’ve told.
It’s all projection, of course. My ex’s favorite pastime: turning his misdeeds, his mistakes, and his toxic behavior into weapons against me. As if enduring a 10-year marriage filled with gaslighting and manipulation wasn’t enough, he continues to rewrite history to fit his narrative, leaving me to pick up the shattered pieces of our shared past. What pains me most, perhaps, is the realization that I let this happen. I trusted him—again. Despite every warning from my gut, I allowed my son to move out of state with his father, convinced that it was the right thing to do. I’ll never understand why I continue to ignore my intuition, that small but persistent voice inside me. Now, here I sit, watching the fallout of that decision unfold. My son has been pulled further and further away, not just from me but from his stepdad, his siblings, his half-siblings, and his step-siblings. My ex’s manipulation is nothing if not predictable, yet it still cuts deep every time. For my own sanity, I feel compelled to write this all down. I need to untangle the web of lies, gaslighting, and distortions that have clouded my memories and left me questioning the past. There’s no making this up; the truth is too wild, too painful, and, frankly, not flattering to me either. But it’s real. And maybe writing it all out will help me find clarity amid the chaos. What will I do with this account of my life? I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll write a book and finally give in to my friends’ insistence that I share my story. Maybe it will become a TikTok series, a raw and unfiltered tell-all. Or perhaps this will remain just for me—a private account of survival, healing, and resilience. Whatever the purpose, I know I can’t keep these feelings and stories bottled up any longer. This is my truth, messy and imperfect, but mine nonetheless. And today feels like the first step toward reclaiming it. “You think you know… but you have NO idea.” Please tell me you wasted many precious hours of your life watching The Real World on MTV like I did!? Well, That phrase sums up any 30 something year old person reflecting back on their 20 something year old self. I didn’t mean to be so naive but I just think as 20 year olds, we just haven’t gained enough life experience to know any better. Sure, I had hard times, made dumb choices, but nothing compared to the trials I had to conquer in my 30ies. When my father passed away, my mom found herself a widow, not enough education to sustain a career, all the debt you could imagine a young mom with a very sick husband might have, 5 young children, at 35 years old. The very thought gives me painful chills. I admire my mother for many reasons but mostly because of how hard she worked to provide not just a good life, but a GREAT life for me and my siblings. Nothing glamorous at all, but as a kid, I never felt deprived of anything. I’m sure she spent many a night trying to figure out how she would put dinner on the table the next night, but she managed mothering, working, serving at church, coaching cheer (which if you’ve ever been a cheer coach you know it doesn’t pay squat!) AND going to school.  Carters Circa 1991 As I grew older, I often thought about if I were in her shoes, what would I do? How would I sustain a life for myself? My Kids? This question is ultimately what pushed me into the Cosmetology Industry. Don’t be fooled, it wasn’t a totally practical decision. I was also very excited to explore my creativity through hair styling and the added bonus of helping others feel good about themselves… all very appealing to this . The goal was to go to hair school and work as a stylist while I went to College. I met a guy and got married 6 months after I finished hair school (2002), never once stepping into a College, and plans of a short career styling hair and then many years of raising babies. Flash forward 10 years (2012), I found myself isolated from family in a new state, crippling anxiety/depression (they tend to be a package deal) and going through a very difficult divorce with 4 young children at my ankles. Oh CRAP, doesn’t even do it justice. When I moved to Arizona a few years before the divorce, I was so overwhelmed by my 4-year-old, 3-year-old, 2-year-old and an almost 1-year-old, that I didn’t even tell anyone that I did hair. It wasn’t that I didn’t love it, I just didn’t want to get myself back in the position of never telling anyone “no” and cutting hair that would fall on my babies faces while they stood, sat, laid at my feet, screaming for my attention. However, with a fresh new divorce, I hopped on the internet, bought a hydraulic chair and started taking clients out of my home.  Fall 2012 It was the perfect job for me during that time. It allowed me the flexibility of pretending like I was a stay at home mom while helping to supplement a tiny bit of income. I would only take clients when my kids were at school, napping or with their dad. I wasn’t rolling in the dough by any means but it helped ease the financial burden a bit. I still have a small clientele of friends that I get to see regularly but over the past 5 years I’ve dabbled here and there with other ventures that could have been great for me but were too difficult for me to balance family life, work, and mental/emotional stability. I really wanted to be the type who could do the single mom thing and start an at home business and just be Successful in all the things. Boy did I reach my limits fast! Guess what, it turns out that I can’t do it all. I just learned (the hard way) that I could just do some and that was going to have to be enough. It took a lot of trial and error and a massive amount of faith but we got through it. So many life lessons we learn amidst challenges. Sometimes we learn them quickly, other times very, very slowly. “THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN ONLY LEARN IN A STORM.” – JOEL OSTEEN (I HATE THAT I JUST QUOTED HIM BUT I CAN RECOGNIZE WORDS OF WISDOM WHEN I HEAR THEM.) Now that my kids are older and am happily remarried, I’m ready to attempt a new adventure. I really love cutting hair and I think I will always do that but I’m looking to do something that can bring in a more consistent contribution… I know what i’m gonna do but I’m note ready to put it out there yet. Stay tuned. and FYI… It took my Mom 20 Years to graduate College but she did it and that’s pretty awesome! |
AuthorHi I'm Cindi! When I'm not chasing after kids or dogs... oh wait, that never happens! Archives
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