New Song: Beauty and Women

I've been songwriting a lot more lately, and last fall I began writing a song because of something I heard in my head when I sat down to write yet another love song: "You can't escape all the lies you create." For me, it's always easier to write about romance and heartbreak, the things that center around another person, and are always filled with so much emotion. 
I guess, when I heard those lines, I knew that I had something else to say that wasn't about being single or in love. Wrestling with my own insecurities, I began to write a song to women who struggle with feeling beautiful, worthy and like they'd never measure up to the world's standards. 
It is such a daily struggle for women, I can't talk for men, but our gender is constantly thinking about each move we make and how we will look because of it. And the truth is, we're all in this together, we should be encouraging each other and lifting each other up. This song is just as much of a message for myself as it is to others. 

I enlisted the help of my good friend Emily Drew, who helped me finalize the song. Then she threw in her rad harmonies and direction, and this is what we ended up with. Mirror's Mirage  https://soundcloud.com/nicolle-monico/sets/original-songs Verse 1: You can’t escape all the lies you create, all the stories you think are true Step away from the mirror’s mirage, I can see that it’s breaking you PreChorus Run and hide, scared of all that's inside Clutching your knees so tight Chorus: Open your eyes, don’t be ashamed Your beauty is truth, can’t you see what’s inside? Tear yourself down, bleed your heart dry Set yourself free, I’m by your side And you’re not alone Verse 2: They always said that you’d never live up Wouldn't be the girl that all the boys choose Brush it off, pretend that it doesn’t matter But you know that it’s killing you PreChorus 2: Run and hide to the demons you fight Clutching your knees so tight Bridge: You are always enough, find the strength that you bear Let me be the lighthouse that guides you home Let me be the fire inside your soul

Grace Learned From Change

Change is one of those things that generally makes me uneasy. It's also something I crave. After high school I started to condition myself to accept change every four years. First there was college in Orange County, then life in the Bay Area and now back down south to San Diego. Each move occurred exactly four years after the previous location. Consistent change.

November 2013 marked my four-year anniversary in America's Finest City. As luck misfortune would have it, it was around this time that two of my closest friends moved away. Then, the first week of December brought about a huge change, a poor choice that led to some unfortunate consequences. Suddenly my four-year itch began to creep up on me, I felt restless and lonely. Add all this to the fact that my 30th birthday was fast-approaching. I felt unprepared, overwhelmed, upset that 2014 was already shaping up to be a bad year.

If given a choice between dwelling on the negative under the comfort of my covers or going outdoors to resist my Debbie-Downer thoughts, well...truthfully, I'll typically choose the former (and did). It's a regrettable part about my introverted personality, and one that has been strengthened through years of practice. 

And then I turned 30, that magical number that many single women fear. It's the same one that has been said to transform us into better women; wiser friends, family members and girlfriends; and more self-assured of who we are. Of course I haven't mastered all those traits in the few weeks since my birthday, but something has been on my mind a lot lately that comes from growing up: grace learned from change. 

Grace for others and grace for myself when life throws us curve balls. Change is inevitable, so instead of avoiding it or running to it to leave behind a messy life, it seems much easier to welcome the benefits we get from it. How much smarter are we because of the mistakes we've made in the past? How much more accepting of other's faults because we know our own, the ones we've overcome and the ones we still need to work on. We're all just looking to make it work from day-to-day and some days are easier than others. But luckily some days are more amazing than others.

I'm thankful that I am not that 16-year-old girl trying to figure out how to get the popular girls to like her; that I'm no longer the 22-year-old who is so completely in love with her boyfriend that she forgets how to love who she is in the process; or that 27-year-old who was afraid to accept responsibility for her mistakes and wrong-doings that may have hurt others.

It occurred to me that grace gives me the freedom to acknowledge the good with the bad and be grateful for both. It's my hope that others would also view me in the same light. Grace allows me to be OK with not being where I want to be at the moment—whether it be with friendships, financially or in my desire to become a daughter that my Heavenly Father can be proud of. Life is moving and I am daily developing. And that, that's a consistent change that I will happily cling to. 

That's the Thing About this Love Business...

A friend’s recent engagement really moved me. It wasn’t the actual proposal; however, it was the back story. Prior to meeting her now fiancé, my friend had shared with me countless times about her struggle to believe that she was going to find a husband. Like most single women, especially in their thirties, this becomes a regular topic of conversation. 

Will it ever happen? How will I know? Am I desirable enough? As any good friend will say, the answer to those questions is “Yes, you just will, and of course you are.” But to truly believe those things is a much harder task. We’d spent hours discussing dating, where to meet the right kind of man and how to avoid getting stuck thinking you’ll one day be a cat lady who will cuddle up to Fluffy and Snowball for love each night. Yes, these thoughts do come up regularly. 

My friend is beautiful, smart, incredibly talented and has a really great personality. She was always talked about in the highest regard and men were always attracted to her. Yet, she still found that no one ever seemed to fit. This caused a lot of hurt and self-deprecating talk usually followed. I hear these same thoughts in many of my friends as well as myself at times. 

But then, she met him. You never know where these things will go when you start them and it’s always a risk to get your heart broken. Yet, as the months passed it was hard to remember her ever being single, they worked so well together.

After her engagement we were able to talk about those earlier days where she’d say she was never going to find Mr. Right. Or how, like many of us, she was blaming God for her singleness. One thing that stood out was how she realized now that had she met her fiancé earlier in her life, she wouldn’t have been ready. They met at the perfect time and while the waiting was hard, she is confident that it happened exactly when it should have.  That’s the thing about all this love business. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen and we don’t need to rush it.

These days stories like this make me wonder why we place so much value on finding a husband. Don’t get me wrong, marriage is a beautiful thing and I want it as much as the next person. But how are our identities so caught up in who we are dating in the moment or who we’re not dating? We’re not all going to get married or find someone, that’s just the facts. Is this really how we want to live our lives though? Waiting for someone to define us while we waste our days away, forgetting that we’re pretty cool just as we are. 

Her story moved me because I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from friends who knew her story thinking, “Maybe there is hope for me too.” Which is almost silly, in a way. Of course there is hope, but let’s not forget that our end goal in life shouldn’t be focused around one person. There are way too many exciting things out there to explore, new restaurants to try and new hobbies to pick up. Travel through South America, take up acroyoga, read Dostoevsky and Faulkner. Be interesting.

Sitting around all day worrying when he’ll fall into your lap is only going to bring you wrinkles and probably a sore booty. If our purpose in life is to be the best version of ourselves and not the girl with the boyfriend/husband it seems like life could be much more fun. If and when love happens we will already be content with our lives and that person will be a bonus to the awesome life we have already been living.

(I’m reminding myself of this as much as any person.)

How To Get Along with People

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS of
HOW TO GET ALONG WITH PEOPLE

1. Keep skid chains on your tongue. Always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, persuasive voice. How you say it often counts more than what you say.
2. Make promises sparingly and keep them faithfully, no matter what the cost.
3. Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about somebody. Praise good work, regardless of who did it. If criticism is needed, offer it gently, never harshly.
4. Be interested in others---their pursuits, their work, their homes and families. Make merry with those who rejoice, and weep with those who mourn. Let everyone you meet, however humble, feel that you regard him or her as a person of importance.
5. Don’t burden or depress those around you by dwelling on your minor aches and pains and small disappointments. Remember, everyone is carrying some kind of burden, often heavier than your own.
6. Keep an open mind. Discuss, but don’t argue. It is the mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
7. Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves. Refuse to talk of other’s vices. Discourage gossip. It is a waste of valuable time, and can be extremely destructive.
8. Be careful of another’s feelings. Wit and humor at another person’s expense may do more damage than you will ever know.
9. Pay no attention to disparaging remarks. Remember, the person who carried the message may not be the most accurate reporter in the world, and things become twisted in the retelling. Live so that nobody will believe them.
10. Don’t be too eager to get the credit due you. Do your best, and be patient. Forget about yourself, and let others “remember”. Success is much sweeter that way.

(Credit Ann Landers)

Read this list last night, passed onto me by a friend. This past year I've been teaching myself to follow these guidelines. While the exact list may be new to me, the principles have been on my mind for some time. Some of them I have gotten better at, some of them I have failed miserably to observe. 

Either way though, it's a good reminder of how to be a better human being. Try it out, see how differently the world responds to you when you do. It's worth a shot, right?

The Born-Again Dater

You could say I was pretty surprised after the guy I had been dating the last two months ended things with me after a series of texts singing my praises the previous day. But the real surprise came a day later in the form of a new BMW Z4 convertible that he had purchased only hours later. And the icing on the cake? The new 25-year-old blonde who would be riding in the passenger seat. 

I don't think it's always appropriate to write about past guys (I'm looking at you, Taylor Swift), but then again, I've never been traded in for 3,000 pounds of metal. But secretly, as a writer, we live for these moments. It's only a matter of time now until I'm the next Lena Dunham.

My friend and I have been tossing around the word 'reinvention' recently. What does it mean for an almost 30 year old to reinvent herself? We're not talking about the "Who am I? What is my purpose in life?" type of questions. I'm fully aware of those answers. No, ours is a question of self-worth and an "others-first" mindset. Fighting our way through the awkward years of questioning everything, it is now time to learn how to be a good friend, a good girlfriend and a good self.

This same friend has a mantra for dating:  Never give them a reason to roll their eyes at you. This meaning, don't become the needy texter, the over-emotional date or the controlling girlfriend. Act with confidence but with respect.

It's interesting dating at this age. The old self would have been more preoccupied with how she was doing on dates than how her date was feeling. She would have text him the first day she didn't hear from him, just to reassure herself that he wasn't forgetting about her. And that old self would have beat herself up over the whys of the dismissal, permitting him to control her emotions. 

Not the reinvented self. 

Our initial dates (with the aforementioned guy) consisted of trying to put him first and consider his need for space and time. Still, being a girl, I allowed myself time to mourn (three days to be exact) when it ended. And then I went for a run, played guitar and got drinks with friends. Life rolled on. 

They say we accept the love we think we deserve. And if I accepted that situation then I'd be doing myself a disservice. We're not meant for everyone, thank God. We are, however, meant to love ourselves enough to guard our hearts and to love others enough to care for them even when things get messy. I missed some red flags because I didn't do the former. And I missed opportunities because I didn't do the latter.

In the end, it didn't work out. But, if he really looks back and thinks about our time together, I don't believe he'd have a reason to roll his eyes.

Just Another Stat?

My grandma had cancer. My mom had breast cancer. My aunt had ovarian cancer. 

Looking at my family history I can't help but consider my odds in the matter. If I was a betting woman, I'd bet against myself; place my money on the other guy, the one who won't be on the receiving end of the cancer stick. 

I'd recently discussed this topic with my friend who then asked, "Are you feeling ominous about it, or just pensive?" 

Both. 

"The latter sometimes creates the former," I answered. 

Cancer has been on my mind a lot this year. I've seen friends and family go through it. Each time a new case arises I wonder when my time will come. I wonder if I'm eating the right foods, exercising enough, praying enough, loving others enough, the list goes on. And, I curse the genes that make me just another statistic.

I'm not afraid of dying, it's the way of nature and life. But I am afraid of closing my eyes for one final time without having made a difference in the world.

I don't fully agree with the saying "Live every day as if it were going to be your last." If I did this I'd end up homeless on the streets of Spain one day having squandered away my money on quick, temporary pleasures. I do believe, however, in living as if you were going to die. Period. Simple.

We are not created to live careless lives with no regard to others. That type of inward focus leaves us unsatisfied and unfulfilled. 

But maybe if we begin living each day as it comes, accepting the good, accepting the bad; we can begin to let go of our constant worrying of what's to come. Because no matter how hard we try to steer ourselves in one direction, inevitably we will be sideswiped by some unseen event. I could sit around and wait for cancer to infect my body or dwell in fear tiptoeing through life as to not interrupt the chemical balance that is holding off the cancer cells.

Or I could live as if I was going to die anyway, regardless of cancer. I choose this option. My desire to pursue my music is witness to this. My day job, the bills I pay monthly, my time volunteered at GenerateHope; they are witness to this. I've learned to travel when I can and take impulsive trips to music festivals in the backseat of stranger's cars for the weekend. But I also understand the necessity to stick with a job for longer than a year and the importance of fulfilling commitments with people, time, and money. 

This seems almost silly to list out and yet I am amazed at how little weight is placed on responsibility these days. We forget "Thank You's", we show up late to meetings and put off committing to anything until we know if there is anything better going on, forgetting to consider the host's plans. 

I may get cancer one day. And if so I hope to battle it with grace and strength as others before me have. Or I will live to be 100 with stories of travels from many different countries. Who really knows, maybe knowing this early about the women in my family is more of a gift. And the gift I've been given is an invitation to self-awareness. 



"I am. I am. I am." - Sylvia Plath

There's a Bluebird in my Heart

Spending time in front of a mic.