All Too Well… Nico’s Edition

Hello again.
I am taking this blog up again after many years away, 
I hang this first ornament on the bough-mostly as a new blessing on a stopped and stalled desire to write. Second, I leave it hanging here so that if anyone that it is about Googles me in a late-night "I wonder what she's up to" fit of sentimentality, they can see that yes indeed, I am thinking of them too. 

I will need a few minutes to talk to you about "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift; in fact, I will need 10 minutes for you to lean in, listen and understand the place I am at. 

This was a perfect time for this album to land- and the seemingly symbiotic nature of Taylor reclaiming her work that men took away from her, while I sort, reclaim, and unburden myself from my past.
This song extends grace and makes me feel less foolish and alone as I struggle with feelings of shame and try to grant me forgiveness and understanding for how reckless I was with myself.
Call it a return to the source, a chance to mourn all the loves that happened in my heart when I was a wide-eyed girl. 

The still-splitting pain inflicted by older men who loved the way I loved them but could never reciprocate (and let's not act like this isn't a pattern I have kept repeating). 

It is hard at 46 to look at the time, opportunities, and money I wasted on men who were not worthy of what I gave. 

I flunked out of college because of love and the pursuit of it- I couldn't keep my focus on me or my life- there was always a *him*. 

There was always a *him* giving just enough to keep me ever-present, ever-available but never giving me enough to keep me from descending into panic attacks and emotional frenzies.

Always a *him* who was always happy to take everything I could give but was never man enough to take responsibility for the feelings that came with taking.

Always a *him* who had souvenirs of me- notes I left them, cards, letters, art, poetry, a file of emails, a file of photos of me that they treasure- an object to be collected but never a real girl, a real relationship or real-life. 

Years later, I still get texts or emails, a photo of these relics found stashed in a box -and I say, "Wow, cool," but it makes me so angry.  They hold up this piece of me as a treasure- this piece of me that they barely thanked me for exists as a receipt, proof to them that they didn't fuck me up so bad, because "I loved them enough to ........." fill in that blank. As my friend Char perfectly stated," They are showing off a prize they didn't win," and it's so painfully true.

I loved them enough to lavish on them. I spent money I didn't have, gave time I couldn't afford.

I loved them enough to make the nothing they offered *luxurious*.

My identity was malleable. I changed into what they desired, dressed like the musicians and movie stars they liked and dyed my hair when a preference for redheads, brunettes, pink was mentioned.

I was able to expand, contract, dull down, or shine according to whatever was needed and fit whatever space was available to me. All of it of me, by me, from me. They existed as a movie screen, only needing to stand there while I ran in circles as the author, director, and projector.  

I struggle now to reconcile what feels forever lost. 

The hours spent being available, waiting, crying and the hundreds of quarters spent checking voice mail from every pay phone for some proof of life, of love. 

The things I didn't do and opportunities I didn't take because I would be forgotten, left, or replaced if I wasn't there. 
The countless times I lived in the shadows as the secret, waiting for my turn, a turn that never came.

It is so hard to feel anything but sorrow and regret all the life I threw out the window so that someone would love me, pick me, marry me and save me...anything, just make me "real."

I can look back with detachment now- I have learned so much, and wow, the therapy has begun to stick. I see everyone in more dimensional ways and know it wasn't always malicious. 

We are all broken- and broken people are often compelled by other damaged people whose brokenness courts and sparks the wounds they carry. I

 offer grace to myself and others; I ask myself to not feel ashamed; I try not to hate. ( I said *try*). 

I understand the role my needs and forms of unhealthy attachment played, but that doesn't mean I cannot mourn with the girl; it doesn't mean I can't sit with her and scream/sing "Break me like a promise" and cry like the hurt is fresh and real because I can, and I do, and it is so, so real.

The 10-minute film was a balm for the heartbreak, and again, it feels so parallel to my own. As I compile my stories, I see them less as scars and more as jewels for the crown I am crafting. I have always said I would write a book, and finally, I feel ready to. It is a book about my life - from the dazzling fireworks to crushing failures and the oh-so-human humanity in between. I get pretty nervous about the messy parts; if I tell them correctly- everyone looks bad- even and especially me. I bolster myself by saying I am only a reporter- here to tell the story accurately- and am steadied by this quote from Anne Lamott:

"You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better."

PS- Taylor, If ever by chance you come by this entry-* Thank You*. Also, can we be friends?

Shop til you Metaphorically Drop

My Etsy Store is now up and running....

Lips Like Sugar prints are up as are Spellbound Hats ( a little out of season but hey, it's NEVER too soon to plan!)

Order a print for your Valentine!:

http://www.etsy.com/TheGlimmerParlour

ALSO! 

I finished floral design school and am now a FDI Certified Floral Designer, in addition to working commercially I am also relaunching Spellbound Flowers, my beloved flower company!

http://www.facebook.com/xospellboundflowers

Are you in Portland? Well then place an order!

A Very Stylish Girl

I've sort of given up on writing a personal blog and turned my attentions to Style--

look me up here:

missnicoisaverystylishgirl.tumblr.com


3 weeks of wonders with a 4th on the way.

Til then- be beautiful darlings, the world is ugly enough on it's own.


XO,
Nico

For Real

Oh realness...
I struggle with you every day .
Most of my life I have been lectured on my complete abandonment of "reality" and it's various trappings.
As of late I have been particularly haunted by it because my greatest joy at the moment lives in this
strange reality- somewhere between here and the-as I will keep it vague "there"
I have a terrible habit of becoming deeply attached/involved with thoughts and ideas.
The plus of it is it gets to the core of me- my affections are complete, from the inside out.
the minus is that the reality constructed between myself and the object of my affections is a world that isn't always anchored in what's real.
Questions go unasked, answers edited and obscured, details are always selective and blurry.
I fell in to a something in April and it took me til well in to October to DT from the little world we
had constructed.
He brought me words and ideas and I did the same for him-- we would write massive missives and talk and talk about everything- our writing- art- dreams- desires and it because it was what I so dearly wanted was able to look past the fluttering red flags and throw myself in to it full hearted ( only now does our heroine discover that could also be spelled "fool hearted")
There was a lovely month- a lovely month where I felt admired and adored...it felt like love.
However, when the flapping of the red flags in the coming storm start to drown out the beat of one's heart- it's hard to ignore- it feels frightening and sickly-the anxiety and nervousness that comes with all the human feelings suddenly ambling for a home.
My attempts to make a place for myself in his heart were met with rejection and then promises to come around...maybe.
I won't go in to all the gory details but I waited, oh how I waited....and I fell for it again when the maybe became a yes.
This time around the very things I crave snapped in to place- plans to make, create, build, work, share-- every word that just makes me melt were thrown around like confetti, it was a yes, a yes that could last, plans were made and plans mean you can relax, right?
Oh no, because that very "relax" means getting real.
When you live in that space of Champagne, Ether and Mercury- as real as it feels to me ( because it is the thing I value about myself beyond my physical body) it lacks the flesh and bone of daily life, of- for all intensive purposes "showing up".
I want to be above these desires but I'm not- for all the nights full of notes and charts and papers spread out across tables- grand plans,laptops, arguments over fonts and rasterizing with various lovers/collaborators that have turned me on like no physical thrill could-- in the words of St. Morrisey "I am human and I need to be loved".
In this case my desire to be loved ended in a humiliating email exchange where this particular specimen
took it upon himself to berate me for his inability to feel anything for me.
For all the lust and inertia, the voraciousness of speech and text- he was a neuter in his bed and I was to blame- I was "too much" my motives were suspicious and unclear, I was wrought with agenda and my obsessions and sundry madnesses frightened him.
The very intensity that beguiled him was the very thing he rolled up and hit me with the minute I had a want.
My desire to become real-- to transform from the page to a person to bloom from snapshot to a flesh and blood human was the worst thing I could ask for.
"Humiliated" is an understatement.
I went away from the world and stayed away.
Fast forward to now-
I find myself asking a lot of questions about the realness of my current world and circumstance-
Due to heartstrings and history it resembles something more dear and real than any of the other dreamgirl hunters have provided me. However, something has changed;
 for all the lust and intrigue it provides I find myself continually thinking about the simple things like being hugged ( I'm not a hugger, it's hella weird), having my hand held and sitting beside him- all the little things.
Details as always with things that are "away" are blurry- it's easy to blur realities and tell the- as my father called it "truth by omission" and I am constantly asking myself if this is real....it feels real..I want it to be real...but "want" doesn't always reconcile with "is".....
Where do but the tipping point between faith and proof when it comes to these things, I read way too many  stories, watched way too many movies- distance and challenges never deterred anyone from anything worth having.
Oh realness, how does one know?
I will have more to say on this but for now I leave you with someone else's words on realness-
This book ( The Velveteen Rabbit) and The Little Prince teach a good many adult lessons on loving someone,allowing oneself to be loved and the hard work that goes in to both of them.



What is REAL?’ asked the Rab­bit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nurs­ery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. ‘Does it mean hav­ing things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’

‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that hap­pens to you. When some­one loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Some­times,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truth­ful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it hap­pen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘ It doesn’t hap­pen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t hap­pen often to peo­ple who break eas­ily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Gen­er­ally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’

‘I suppose you are real?’ said the Rabbit  And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse only smiled.

‘ Someone made me Real,’ he said. ‘That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.’

.

Breaking with tradition

last night I made a list of all the things I wanted to cover in a long overdue update to this blog- a vacation, an adventure, more loss,weightloss, employment,unemployment and heartache have all unfurled since I last signed in to this damn thing and "PROMISED" I would write every day.

Thus proving the long believed theory  that the sure fire way to get me to NOT do something is to make me promise to do it- ultimately this is a reflection of what a challenge I would be as a prospective Wife- I've always said the proper phrasing to win me would be "I dare you..."

Still- I had this list of funny anecdotes,pictures of purses and nailpolish, tales of my recent makeover and a bunch of snarky nonsense about the ridiculous employment go round I have suffered through. Oh how I wanted to make you laugh- Oh how I wanted to delight you.

However, I woke up and logged on to a world full of sadness and fear.

A gunman decked out for slaughter massacred 14 people ( as of 1:10 pst-7/20/12) and wounded many more in a movie theater in Colorado.

My heart just snapped in two.

This was a late opening night screening. You know who go to those- people who have been looking forward to it with everything in them.

I have few words right now and quite frankly I wish to be spare because the last thing I want is this catching the eye of any gun nut who takes it upon themselves to make a presence on my page.

I have never been adverse to responsible gun ownership and use- However, seeing yet another incident like this leaves me at a cross roads with my ethics and I have to say I can no longer condone it, it doesn't make us safer as a people or a nation. 

It makes us fear filled and reckless- each person feeling they have the right to play g-d and law. I don't care if it is just a "hobby"- for hunting or some self aggrandizing need for "protection"-- this must stop. It is time to say NO- I am tired of arguing the point- I will not listen to contrary viewpoints anymore- I will not waste another day attempting to reason with zealots and fools it is time to say NO, you are WRONG. I think many of us who feel this way but have felt considerate of others beliefs need to speak up and do the same. There are enough bullets in this country to kill every American many times over.
So no anecdotes, nail polish or handbags today-- I just find the need to be silent  awhile. Sometime life needs to not "go on" for a few minutes so we can let the gravitas that we often escape due to inertia hit us full.

Kiss and hug everyone and everything you love all the time.

It's all you got.

Life Changing Experience.....

The tears hit this morning...

I'm not going to get in to it but the final wave of some loss and rejection passed over and through me this morning.

I'm not going to parade my sadness around but in the words of Mick and Keith- "you can't always get what you want...." but also in the words of Mick and Keith "but if you try sometimes....you get what you need..."

Truer words were never spoken.

I was sitting in a Starbucks drinking  tea and wham- the mounting pressure of the feelings I had been shoving to the back of my head collapsed the levy and I was left flooded. I am not a fan of crying in public, I am less of a fan of crying in Starbucks @ 7:30 in the morning.

I miss my father...honestly- all these other feelings are unsettling and irritating but all of them hardly belong to themselves,they all take root in missing Dad. The closer we get to Bree's wedding the more it starts to hurt.

We just wanted to make it that far, I wanted him to be in the sun and happy one more time before he died. We didn't make it and I feel so deeply sad about it.

All week I have found myself absolutely starved for one of his hugs, the last time I was at the house I sat on his beg and hugged his pillows. The longing is the wrenching part, I want- I want- I want.

However- the good thing is that even in my sadness I am staying on track- my

food indulgences yesterday were still all good for me and I tried on my Joanie dress that was to be my goal dress for New York and BOOM, 3 weeks ahead of schedule IT FITS!

I still need to lose about 15 more for it to look superfly, but man, I needed the boost today.

Yesterday I went to Pilates and man, did it kick my ass.

I can officially say I prefer Pilates to Yoga. No bullshit spiritual practice heaped in with me cursing the gods due to muscle pain, I know it works really well for some people so I won't knock it ( too much) but I prefer my spiritual practice over here....and my exercise over there...

I am going to the gym every single goddamn day til I leave for Florida/NYC and absolutely determined to return to where I left off in November.

Nothing. Not. One. Thing. is going to get in my way this time.

My health, discipline and self-esteem are absolutely VITAL to the other goals I have set and unless I exhibit the same obsession towards them that I do every other thing and person that crosses my path I will always wind up in the same spot.

I am done, I have exited this sadsack station where i sit and have sat waiting for something wonderful to happen, waiting for my life to arrive I have exited the station and I consider myself 86'd, no longer welcome there because I am not resigned to waiting anymore.

In the midst of the tornado yesterday I fully failed to see something that was put in front of me for what it was- and after my tears today it finally registered. One of my dreams is coming true.

I am going to be working for/with one of my IDOLS - Miss Dianne Brill.

When I was 17 I found a book called Boobs, Boys and High Heels.

It changed my life and made me in to the girl I am today.

I feel like I forgot my Brill-iance somewhere in my late 20's and now as I am 37 I am FINALLY remembering it-- there is a huge correlation to who I was at 17 returning to my life right now, it is powerful-- I loved that me, she was pure, powerful and shimmering. I see her peeking through a lot more these days.

Long of the short,- she owns a cosmetics company and I have been dying to rep for them for over a year- maybe even 2 years now-- well, wish granted . 

The wheels have started turning and all I can hope is that I get to meet her. When I was creating my vision board for this year I taped up all the packaging from the goodie back the North American Distributor sent me.

I didn't know exactly what it mean when I put it there since we had been out of touch for SO long but it meant something to me, she means something to me-- I'll type up a few passages from the book soon to show you why-- she liberated me at a time when I needed to be liberated the most. I just pulled my copy out of the bookshelf, it's time to be re-libbed.

So there's some thoughts for today--- I hate the sadness my life has contained but somewhere in it I found release- release from not just the present pain but the great big sorrow that has been holding me  down/back for nearly 20 years-- I look at this as being released, I have served my sentence- the gates are open- the time has come.

Freshly Squeezed

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. 

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

 The world will not have it. 

It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. 

It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. 

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. 

You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. 

There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

 -Martha Graham

A dear  friend posted this on his facebook feed the other day and it served as a binder to many of my flailing feelings about what the fuck I am doing 

these days.

Many, many changes are happening in my world and at long last I am taking myself by the reins and changing me.

I'll get back to the whole point of the quote in a bit but I have to start at the point of origin so that this can be candid and not just talking around the truth.

The last month of my life has been incredibly difficult- somehow in the midst of great adventures and great joys the pitch black place started calling me again and I knew that this was it. It was time for the showdown.

All the sudden it came sweeping through my life blacking out my happiness, erasing my confidence and absolutely torching the ground underneath me. I haven't had one of these episodes for over 2 years, they are terrifying, paralyzing and beyond unsettling. I cannot sleep, I cannot stay awake everything is uncomfortable and I walk around feeling like everything touching me is 2 sizes too small...

I hit the wall.

This time there was nothing to do but face it.

My lack of self control has been staggering in the last few months, the grieving process leading up to and after the loss of my father has affected me in ways I could never expect. I lived 4 months in constant fear of something happening to him and after it happened I shut down entirely- I hardly cried, I talked about it like it happened to someone else...it wasn't til a couple of weeks in to April that  I actually felt the ache kick in and to be honest, it hasn't really stopped. 

I miss him deeply.

I feel like I am without a harbor,audience or warden. 

All things I have been used to having and made the wild assumption that I would always have.

There is a hole in my world and when Dad quit chemo I sensed the deepening of this hole and began filling it mostly with food but my obsessions became more acute and my high strung nature went in to overdrive.

I won't go in too deep to where I was then  but I take you to where I was 2 weeks ago, hardly sleeping - waking up in fits and starts, crying, gorging myself on food only to feel ravenous, my need was endless...

It's odd because some other points of my life have been so very pleasing - and when I am in those pools it is as if the other things did not matter, or even exist but the minute I was left alone with me I began to terrorize myself. All the sudden I was fat and hideous, a slob, a fake, a failure- All things I KNOW are not true but I was more than willing to whip myself with for the sake of letting this  anger flow to the surface.

I have been stagnant and it feel like a death.

I have 20 projects I wish to create a company that I am very proud of and I want to see thrive but I have sat on my hands for a month....waiting for them to wake up, waiting for them to finally link to my brain and make something. It has been a sad time for me, the one thing that truly links me to my father is my ability to do and make- When I can't do that I feel dead inside, dead inside and a million miles away from the energy that 

has fed me my whole life.

So, I consumed...I consumed and consumed- nothing has been enough.

No affection anyone could give me could be enough, no food could keep me fed, no applause loud enough...my need had become so monstrous that nothing felt good for very long anymore...so I kept hitting the lever and hitting the lever and hitting the lever.

The lever snapped.

I sat with myself a week ago Monday and I looked at myself. Despite the pretty dress and hair, I looked like I was falling apart, my body pulling at the seams of my largest sizes, my eyes looking blacked out and dull- not a stitch of joy in my face when I was alone. 

This had to change.

Last September I started a juice reboot inspired by the film "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" It really changed my way of thinking about how I was   feeding myself and caring for my machine ( my machine being *me*) 

I quit coffee and went on a 30 day reboot and lost nearly 30 lbs in a month, I felt incredible. Then October happened. I stayed pretty true to my regime but started slipping here and there but because I was hitting up the gym I managed to lose another 10 lbs- down 40 out of a 75lb goal in 2 months-- The November happened and it all fell apart.

Dad gave the rough news that he was stopping treatment and I dedicated my time to him. In all the sorrow and sadness I completely forgot all the hard work I did and in 4 months time gained back everything I lost.

Grief binging, I do not recommend it.

I was halfway there and I gave up on myself.

I was halfway there and I absolutely abandoned all my hard work.

In retrospect, I'm not even sure why- it wasn't like I had to in order to help take care of Dad. In truth I think my old sabotage abilities are always on the scan for a means of tripping myself up and rejoice when they see a window left unlatches or a loophole left dangling.

The first 3 days were hell, in fact such hell that I think I totally alienated a very dear friend by a major meltdown over the dinner table. 

One wouldn't think it would be so hard but all the coffee, sugar and starch loading I had been doing to keep myself awake/not lethargic left a huge gap in my chemical makeup when I took them away. 

It is now approaching week 2 of me making these cuts and setting myself on a healthier track- there is 11 lbs less of me according to the gym scale and i am feeling a lot more sane/stable/reasonable/reliable than I have felt in a while. It all has to do with self control, something I have never really been good at.

I posted the quote above because it resonated with me, deeply resonated.

I have decided to take this month off from my usual time wasting routines and spend it working on my goals, my body and my art.

I have far too broad a lens right now and I need to narrow it down and figure out what I am really good at.

I have received some hints and signs a long the way recently-- and now I have to create space to DO-- not just talk, think or dream but DO.

My favorite old goat said it best "Don't Try"

You spend your whole life trying, you'll never do anything.

That is why I have it tattooed on my spine.

Because there are days I feel beat down, weary, burdened by my oh so public failures and I whine and I cry and I say I am "trying" 

I am sick of my crying- I owe myself the right to shine.

Now, off to shake these pin curls out and go spin some Tom Waits.

Happy 1 year of not getting bored and giving up on something to me and The Raindog Revival.

I'll be writing here in long form as much as I can and if you like my quippy non-sense hit me up on twitter http://www.twitter.com/missnicobella