My friends call me Cindy, and I hope you will, too.

I think of myself as a woman who has been shaped by many chapters, some steady and some deeply formative.

Professionally, I’ve worn many hats. I began my career in publishing and owned and operated five businesses. Beyond The Glass Slipper (BTGS) is my sixth venture. Each one taught me something different about leadership, risk, creativity, and resilience. This being my final venture, it’s less about building something bigger and more about creating something truer.

Along the way, I earned a master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. I worked as a Speech-Language Pathologist, with the latter part of my career focused on cognitive therapy with neurologically impaired patients. In those years, I listened closely, not just to language and memory, but to lives. I learned how much wisdom women carry, how easily it is dismissed, and how often aging women are talked over, underestimated, or quietly ignored.

Those lessons became deeply personal. I see it in my relationship with my 98-year-old aunt, whose sharpness and sensitivity remained intact for 96 years of her life, even as the world assumed otherwise. When she says she feels invisible, I understand her pain, and I recognize how common it is.

My personal life has been layered. I married young, divorced, and later remarried when my daughter was five years old. That relationship and marriage lasted almost twenty years. I became a widow at 46 when my husband passed away suddenly. That relationship remains one of the great gifts of my life. His memory lives on through my relationship with his wonderful sons and their respective families. This experience reshaped how I understand love, stability, and how fragile life can be.

In the years that followed, I navigated caregiving, loss, and reinvention. At sixty, I survived cancer, another chapter that clarified what matters and what doesn't.

I grew up in a family where responsibility came early, emotions were often unspoken, and the focus on perfection was more than subtle. I became the caretaker, the fixer, the one others leaned on. While those roles taught me invaluable skills, they also delayed a critical realization: knowing you are loved and feeling loved are not the same thing. Much of my later-life growth has come from gently untangling this truth and understanding how regrets form when we live on autopilot rather than with intention.

I’ve learned the importance of maintaining a sense of purpose in my life. I retired for one year before starting the research for this project. Now, a year and a half later, I realize this was an incredible period of growth, and while a relationship ended in heartache, it taught me a great deal. I learned more about myself, how to recognize my needs, and what boundaries are.

This space grew from everything I’ve lived and learned, not as advice, but as reflection. I believe in living with intention and having a purpose in life, no matter your age. Nurturing meaningful connections and tending to our mental and cognitive well-being with honesty and compassion are vital. Not as a performance, but as a practice.

I’m not here with all the answers. I’m here because I’ve spent a lifetime listening, and because it’s never too late to take ourselves, and what we want for ourselves and others, seriously.

Furthermore, I could not be more delighted that you are here.