Yadum FMX! | Adam Jones Blog #3

The 2015 season was one that marked a ton of changes for me in both my FMX career and my personal life. Some positive, some negative….but definitely all worth a trip down memory lane. It seems like a series of super negative, kick-in-the-nuts situations ended me up in one of the luckiest, most undeserving situations I’ve ever been in. I’m obviously talking about marrying a crazy hot, way out of my league, woman from England.

In July of 2015, I was about eight years into a bad marriage. You know, one of those ones where you’re not really happy, but for some reason, you pretend you are and drag yourself through the mud year after year…unfortunately too many people in the world know all about that, and keep themselves in that situation. Well, I had enough…one day I hit the end of my rope and decided I couldn’t fight for that marriage anymore. I basically just shut down, and the divorce process began. Things went the way you would expect if you are a male in a divorce…I was villainized, drained of my earnings, and forced to dump everything I could into a legal custody battle to ensure I would still have 50% time with my son. It was a long battle, and I’m broke now…but after two-and-a-half years the fight ended and it was undeniable that I was a good, loving father, who deserved to have equal opportunity with his son. It only took a couple of hundred grand in lawyers, and nearly three years to get there….but that’s a whole different story.

 

A couple of months after the divorce started I received another kick to the ball sack….one November day an e-mail came through stating that although we thought we had previously verbally agreed to extend my contract, Monster Energy had changed their mind it would not be renewing me. What a shock this was to me! I had ridden for Monster Energy for so long that for some reason I allowed it to become part of what I perceived as my identity. On top of the major financial blow, feeling that you’re fading away and losing who you are is a really difficult thing to deal with. Gosh, dangit this story is really putting me down in the dumps…time to get to the good stuff!

So despite the obvious negatives in my life, I had just gotten out of a total of 10 years worth of a bad relationship, and I was free. Free and girl-crazy I have to admit. Social media transformed from a business tool…to a meeting girls in new cities tool. I realize I sound like a dirtbag, and I apologize…but I had to sow my wild oats I guess, and I was definitely doing my best at getting that done. In October we started touring all the big arenas in the US for Nitro circus, it was definitely the best thing to be doing while single, haha! It’s pretty much the best version of Groundhog Day: you do the same show every day, with the same group of guys, and end up at a bar that looks the same every evening, then wake up and do it all over again. Maybe not the most responsible thing but hey, we survived it and made some memories. (I think…ok well maybe I don’t remember them!) Anyway, we finished a show in Portland one night and ended up doing a little after-party in the hotel bar area, not a big night by any means. So everything winds down and we all head to bed: you know, one big group nitro circus bed as you would expect. And as I typically would do at that time, I took a quick social media browse to see what the female situation was like on the gram. As I was scrolling, one “like” on one photo had me massively surprised. I remember thinking…this has gotta be a fake account, there’s no way.

Well since I had a few beers with the boys already and I was feeling frisky, I sent a message out. I waited as long as I could, but the eyes were closing and I couldn’t hang on any longer, and damn, no response. I thought that was it, and in all fairness, it probably should have been since there’s no reason a woman that looks like that should want anything to do with me, but I guess fate had a different idea and I woke up to a response message!  Kim and I started talking and really hit it off. We seemed to think the same way about things, had similar life and relationship experiences, and she was funny as can be so I couldn’t get enough. We talked every day for a month or two, and then before I knew it Nitro Circus had scheduled a European Arena Tour in February of 2016, and of course, London was on the schedule. The time finally came and I convinced Kimberley to take the two-hour drive from Christchurch to London to spend the day with me while I was in town. I figured she would see me in person, realize how ugly I actually am….and then maybe give me a sympathy freebie. Ha ha! I’m kidding…but the situation was worrying. I actually liked this girl, but I never spent a second with her in real life. Lucky for me, everything went great in London, and we had such a great time together that I convinced her to fly to Paris a week later and spend the weekend with me. The city of love lived up to its reputation and we had an unforgettable weekend. Walking, talking, and sightseeing all weekend….it was amazing, and I was hooked. For some reason she was too….which is weird. It’s like I have terminal cancer that I don’t know about yet, and I’m going to suffer horrifically for an extended period of time, and I have a rich benefactor who figured he would give me something nice before my time comes. That’s really the only way I can understand it. We did the long-distance thing for a couple of years, and now here we are years later: married, living in Nevada, with a house full of crazy kiddos and pets, and also still crazy about each other.

That’s it though…that’s the story of how a not so handsome, semi ok dirt bike rider ended up with a smoking hot babe who is way out of his league. I wish I had some tips for the average dudes out there on how to do it…but honestly, I haven’t figured it out yet. I’ll let you know when I do! The weirdest thing though is how one of the best things in my life came after one of the lowest periods of my life. Nothing at all was going right for me, but I just kinda kept going and kept doing what I enjoy, and I came out the other side clean. Life’s weird, it definitely kicks you down more than it picks you up, but it ain’t all bad, and in most cases, the weight of the good outweighs the weight of the bad. To everyone out there still reading (all 3 of you) keep charging, and I hope you find your supermodel! Or….whatever it is that makes you happy, haha!