“Her name is Neytiri. It’s the main female character from the movie, ‘Avatar.’ I used to have a male named Jake, which was the main male character.

“About a year ago, she was playing with my friend’s bigger dog when they nipped each other. It was just an accident, but she lost her eye. When it happened, Neytiri jumped up on my bed and just looked at me like she was sad. I knew it hurt, so I took her to the vet. They said it pierced the retina and they wouldn’t be able to save the eye, so we scheduled the surgery.

“At times now, she creeps up on the edges of things because she knows it’s not quite the same as it used to be. But she’s bounced back. She still loves to come out here to play and chase the squirrels. She doesn’t see them as well as she used to, but she manages pretty well.

“I’ve been divorced for about three years. I don’t know what I’d do without her. We live in a trailer at a little RV park, and she sleeps in the bed with me. Comes under the covers on my right side every night. She’s such a great companion.”

The post Neytiri ‘a great companion’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I’m on a transformation journey. I recently got divorced. I have two wonderful kids. And I realized it’s important for me to become more in tune with who I am.

“Leaving a relationship to focus on me has been a challenge. But the wisdom that has come out of that, it’s like, I’m enjoying who I am. I’m learning more about myself.

“The goal is to be free. When I turned 30, I got my first tattoo. It’s just the words Be Free, but it symbolizes so much. It means letting go of past versions of me — how I viewed myself and how others viewed me — and embracing my most authentic self. That means being true to myself, despite what others may think or feel. Despite the path set out for me or the path I set for myself.

“To become the best version of me, I have to heal. I have to learn. I have to do the work.

“I’m 31, and I feel like I’ve done so much in life. But I still have so far to go. Sometimes I overthink that part, and I don’t appreciate how far I’ve come. So now I try to practice gratitude. It’s made me more centered. Because when I reflect on my life, I have achieved a lot.

“My goal now is balance. Balancing who I am on the days when I love myself and on the days I don’t feel so great about myself. We all have flaws, which we try to keep hidden from the world. But they’re still part of who we are. Instead of hiding them, maybe we should try embracing them. Because even though I may think I’m flawed in so many ways, another person may see beauty in that.

“Journaling has helped. I’m always in my head. I’m always thinking. So it allows me to get the majority of those thoughts down on paper. It’s a way to release those emotions, process them, meditate on them, and move on.

“Sitting by the water and journaling is a practice I want to do more often. Just for healing and clarity. I’m searching for that inner peace.”

— Synethia Edinborough

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“I grew up in a household where I never saw affection. Well, I saw it from one individual, the female, but not from the male. He was always too macho.

“It was a physically abusive environment. Not toward me, but the female. When I saw the abuse, it made me sad. You hear about kids stepping in, and the person stops. Or sometimes they get smacked around, too. I was too afraid to do anything. I only got hit once. But that’s all it took to wise up.

“As I got older, I got into a lot of fights. I was really wild in my teens. I was mischievous, or maybe just foolish.

“When I was 22, I met the woman who would become my wife. We started going out, and I fell in love with her. I told her I was going to make her fall in love with me. And I accomplished that. We were together for almost 20 years, married for 12. We had two kids together.

“I married her because I cared for her and loved her. But it never felt quite right inside. It was great in the beginning. But I had so much stuff bottled up from my past that I began pushing her away.

“Growing up, I didn’t see people in my family going to therapy or marriage counseling. I had a lot of confusion about how a man should treat a woman, and how to be in a relationship.

“After she left me, after our divorce, I was really sad. She found someone else and remarried. I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love again. I did, but it didn’t work out.

“Before we got married, my ex-wife and I took a class through the Catholic church. One thing the priest said was, ‘Don’t let the sun set on your anger.’ But a lot of times while we were married, I would go to bed angry. It was aimed toward my wife, but it wasn’t her fault. It was the different things I experienced growing up that were coming through. I regret my actions, and I’ve apologized to her.

“When I was a kid, I had this vision. It was of an old man, and he looked real sad. I thought that was going to be me in the future, all alone, never married, never having kids. I ended up doing both those things. And I love my kids. While it may not all have turned out as perfect as I wanted, it’s still something.”

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“We both had been married once and divorced once. They were abusive relationships and traumatizing experiences. So exiting that, it was kind of like, I don’t know if I’ll ever get married again.

“When he and I got together, from the very beginning, we had open conversations. Divorce was never the goal. But because of what we had experienced in our first marriages and the divorce process, we said, God forbid that if we ever do separate, instead of being a harm to each other, let’s be a help to each other. If it does have to end, let’s make sure that we both come out of this relationship with some positives and support from each other. Let’s not be like, oh, my ex-husband, I hate him, he’s such a jerk. We always had that agreement and mutual respect for each other.

“We really tried to work it out. But after about two years, we arrived at the decision that we needed to file for divorce. That’s what we did last January.

“We did not have children together; we both had children prior to finding each other. We were in complete agreement of division of assets. We were not fighting about anything. But because of delays related to the pandemic, it was the end of August before everything was finalized. We didn’t ever see the judge. We just signed paperwork with the lawyer, and the lawyer had a virtual hearing with the judge. Even my divorce paperwork was signed with a digital stamp. It was kind of a weird, unique experience.

“Mainly for financial reasons, we continued living in the same house while waiting for the divorce to be final. I have a four-bedroom home, so it wasn’t like we didn’t have space for him. We were really like very good roommates.

“He didn’t move out until a few months after the divorce. I told him, ‘Dude, it’s time. I can’t start dating and tell the guy, by the way, my ex-husband still lives in my house.’ But I do say to people now that he’s actually my best friend.”

— Jessica Ortiz

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The post Divorce quite different during pandemic appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“If I stop to think about everything that’s happened — being in a difficult marriage, getting a divorce, raising three young girls on my own — it’s a lot. But I think I’ve come a long way, as far as learning more about myself, and growing as a person and a mother. I think I’ve become a more confident person. That’s a huge thing for me.

“I was always pretty introverted and shy. But I feel like I’ve come way out of my shell, especially since the divorce four years ago. I’m much more independent and confident now. I’ve kind of had to be.

“Don’t get me wrong. I still have moments where I struggle with that a little bit, just because of the challenges of daily life. The house may not be perfectly clean all the time and I may lose patience with my girls every now and then. But overall, I guess I’m pretty proud of myself for what I’ve been able to accomplish.

“Although I have no family living close by, I haven’t done this all on my own. There have been so many people through church and other friends who have provided support. I wouldn’t be in the place I am now without them.

“I feel like there’s so much that I’ve learned and still have to learn. And I’m still facing some big challenges. But I have what I call this radical faith that’s helping lead me through it all. In the end, I’m going to have this huge story to tell. I think it will help somebody else who might be going through a rough time in their life. If I can be that person who can help others, then that will really be something I can be proud of.”

— Erynn Anderson

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The post ‘I’m going to have this huge story to tell’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I’m divorced. My ex-wife and I share our daughter evenly. And I thank God for my profession. As an ICU nurse working the night shift, I’m able to set up my schedule so I can spend the most time possible with her. During the days that I don’t have her, I can still do things like have lunch with her at school or talk with her on the phone. Every day, whether in person or not, I try to have some time with her.

“My daughter and I are very close, which is really important to me. Because a divorce is hard on everybody. That’s another aspect of what this Spiderman thing is. If I do what I’m doing to make other kids happy and inspired, I try to go even beyond that for my own. I just want to carry my daughter along on the journey. I make videos so I can document what she and I have had growing up.

“I take the role of fatherhood very seriously. A lot of people say that. But I think we can be pretty easily written out of the story — our importance, our influence. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel like that, regardless of what I’ve been through in my marital life. I don’t ever want her to feel like Dad’s not her hero.”

— Kelvin Gray

Learn more about Kelvin and his Spiderman persona on his Facebook page, MrGlass FromBaytown.

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“My grandmother is the epitome of a nana. She always feeds you. She always listens to you. She’s always there for you. She always wants the best for you. Now, for her and my grandfather to do this garage sale to help with my wedding, it’s just amazing.

“We’ve been really fortunate. The venue we wanted had a sale conveniently going on when we were looking, so we got a low price. The wedding dress I found went on sale the next day, so it was really cheap. I don’t know how, but everything is coming together. And it’s amazing to see how much family, friends and just life in general are kind of saying, here you go.

“I used to think about what it would be like to get married. But after my parents divorced when I was 16, I didn’t know if it would ever happen for me. I always hoped for it. But when you grow up with two great parents, then all of a sudden it kind of crumbles, you wonder if there’s such a thing out there for you. But with my grandparents, I always saw it. I still see it. So I know it’s there. They’ve been married almost 50 years. Now it’s kind of cool to have my own moment, where I know it’s real. We’re going to make it happen.”

— Kaitlyn McDonald

The post With extra help from grandparents, wedding on track appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“When I was young, I would see newspaper ads for places like Walmart, Target and Kmart. And I would tell my mom, ‘I want to model for that. How can I do that?’ She was so busy working that she never had time to look into it. But it always stayed in the back of my mind.

“Fast forward to me being married for over 10 years to a not-very-good guy. When we were going through the divorce, I remember the words that he said to me. I was told that I was never going to be anybody, that I was fat, that I was ugly, and that no other man was ever going to want me with four children.

“So that set the foundation for me wanting to prove him wrong. I told him, ‘I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but God is going to put me on a platform where I’m going to be able to look down on you like you looked down on me for all these years.’”

After working up her courage to attend acting school in Los Angeles, she began building her portfolio with appearances in print ads, TV commercials and short films.

“One of the most special things I’ve done is appear in a series of commercials for Disney. It was a magical experience. It’s something I was proud and excited to do for my girls. I want them to be strong. I want them to see that you can achieve whatever you want if you set your mind to it.

“Mommy was told that she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do that. But that’s wrong. Mommy was able to leave an abusive relationship. Mommy was able to go do things that she was told she would never be able to do. So you can do that, too. I can already see that my girls are go-getters also. They don’t take no for an answer.”

— Angelica Mercado

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The post Acting career serves as example for daughters appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I was married for about five years. We struggled a little bit at first. We didn’t make that much money, so we were dealing with the normal stress of bills. But once we got into the groove of things we eventually bought a home and we had new cars. It seemed like we had everything we needed. But we still were not 100 percent happy. He worked out of town a lot, so that put additional stress on our relationship.

“It felt like we became roommates. We just grew apart. We tried, but it just didn’t work out in the end. So we decided we would separate and divorce. It was amicable. And now he’s remarried and has a family. I’m happy for him. I’m glad that he found someone he could be happy with. We just weren’t happy.”

The post Hopeless romantic not soured on marriage appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“College was the place I began songwriting. I dreamed of moving to Nashville, and I worked toward that goal. One day, in 2002, I was offered a contract with a record label and seriously considered making the leap. But the next day, we discovered that my wife was pregnant. I chose not to pursue a career in music so that we could focus on our family.

The post Song tells story of what it’s like to move on in life appeared first on The Baytown Project.