Hi. It’s my last week in Hebden Bridge. This time next week it will be me and my suitcase again.

Back to London for a week doing some work and having some lessons and then over to New York. I’m really thinking about what I’m taking with me this time. Absolutely no extra baggage that I don’t need. Every extra item weighs something and I have to carry that fucker around with me until I find somewhere to live in New York. I still don’t know where I will stay. This time last year there’s absolutely no way I would have been able to cope with it but I keep checking Craigslist for a sublet and there are new ones coming up every day so nearer the time I’ll arrange some viewings for when I get over and stay with a friend for a couple of nights, so I don’t imagine it will be so difficult.

A few months back I was dying for my time here in the countryside, and a part of me has settled here. It’s a bit of a wrench to leave tbh but I know I’ve had my recovery and recharge time and it’s time to get back out there and follow this feeling of America being where I will be in the future. It does not go away.

I would say my time here has been about reflection and regrouping myself to find a healthier and more positive approach to it all. I said in my last blog that I can’t function mainly on fear and panic and that’s what’s changed inside me. I feel ok about what I’m doing and am definitely able to surrender, let go and go with the flow much more than I could this time last year. The fear is still there but the desire to do it is much stronger. I am a strong believer that we are always being helped. As a child I grew up with my dad seeing spirit and he would give people messages, so for me it was normal that dead people were around and that we are always being helped. I go to spiritualist churches and have readings myself from time to time and I’ve seen family members in dreams and been told stuff.

I also think signs are everywhere to help us, and I can see that these last couple of months have been about getting me to change my mindset and to let go of a lot of things I was holding onto to, making me heavy. The signs have been there. Time for a new approach. I picked up two books recently which were perfect to help me to stay with what I am doing. The first was talking about how we have to ‘help ourself’. No matter what we’ve been through or who has done what to us in our past to hurt us, it has to be us ultimately that help ourselves. Follow our heart, listen to our inner voice, not be in victim mode, go for the things we want to make us happy. I know I am the only one who can make ME happy. I know there’s no other person or thing that can do it for me and I’ve followed my gut and listened. I left my husband and the life we had built up to live as I knew I really wanted to live. I’ve walked away from jobs, homes, places and people, and moved to various different countries. I’ve worked tirelessly to get work, to get better, to create work and to keep going. I’ve given everything I have to singing, mentally, emotionally and financially. It’s the strongest force within me. I’ve never stopped going for it. In one of the books I read it talks about ‘paying the price’ and how people know what they want but aren’t willing to make any real effort to get what they want. He says (Dave Pelzer that is):

‘when we are willing to pay the price, when we carry that desire deep within our heart that no one or any situation can take away from us, are there truly any excuses? In every article I have read of people who have accomplished something significant to themselves, against enormous odds, all, one way or another, have had the same philosophy: They wanted it more and were willing the pay the price it took to achieve their dreams’.

That is me. I’m following my ‘yellow brick road’. I know now the doubt is going in my mind, the fear is lessening. I know without a shadow of a doubt that my future is in America. I don’t know how it will happen or in what way but I’m showing up and doing my part, ready for whatever is ahead. The main thing is that I keep believing and keep going. I know I’m nearly there with it so I have to stay strong and focused.

I feel lucky and humbled every time I get to sing for people now. No one is knocking down my door asking me to sing for them in the opera world and no opera companies or people of any real importance in the profession care about me or who I am. It was always like that. I got work but I was of no real significance to anyone. I never really stood out. I was never the one people were talking about. It wouldn’t have mattered to anyone if I had given up or not. I don’t look to these people anymore. I look to me and what I like doing for people and this week I worked for the charity Lost Chord, bringing music to people in care homes.

I’ve been doing it for 13 years now and there was a point a few years back where I thought ‘I’m done with it’, but I’m glad I have carried on. I did 14 concerts in 5 days around Coventry and Ipswich. To see smiles on people’s faces and to see people joining in and then thanking you and saying it’s been wonderful just does it. I basically get paid to go and have a sing song with the people. Win win, from the heart ‘this is top’. Yep, it’s tiring and you are giving all the time but it’s my job and I also got to see some pretty places in Suffolk too in between concerts:

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I’m off to my brothers tonight to see the fam and have a few drinks and sort out my suitcase for good and then this coming week will be tying things up here. I did make a couple of friends once my laryngitis had gone and got help with my Italian for my Otello aria. Got to get back into all that now. I’ll be singing for ‘Music for the Many’ at the Fielden Centre in Todmorden on Friday at 6pm (entry is free), and I said I would sing for an old lady who is housebound as a little gift too. Friend of a friend. It’s good to give…………..

For more info on what I’m doing follow me on https://www.facebook.com/iamnicolamills/ and check out my website at www.iamnicolamills.com (got some new events to put on there when I get my backside in gear with them).