This Is What Dreams Are Made Of ✨

I'm in the air crossing the pond...to live out my teenage popstar dreams...

It’s a random Wednesday in the middle of July, and by chance, luck, good faith, or simply being God’s favorite…something. I’m on a plane right now on the way to Paris, France, for one of the biggest moments happening in the world, watching ATL, my favorite movie in the entire world. Do I know anything about the 2024 Olympics besides that it happens every four years, and Simone Biles kills it in gymnastics every year? No…but I know that this is what dreams are made of. 

Sometimes, I question if God is real and if he’s listening, but when things that I literally prayed for happen, it really makes me believe somebody hears me. 

This year has been filled with so much grief sometimes I forget the tragic feelings I have until I’m alone in silence, which these days I try to overly avoid. I try to forget that this year, I lost my favorite person in the world & I can no longer share my wildest moments with my TT anymore. I know she would have all the perfect words & motivation for me, and it hurts my soul every day that she’s not here. Not having my soundboard in life has me scrambling, feeling like SpongeBob when he forgot his name. 

With all of the tragedy I’ve endured from 2023 into 2024, I needed a “this is what dreams are made of” moment in my life. This week, my mama said, “You always expect fireworks in life,” and I truly do. And why not? 

I blame Disney Channel for my constant state of delusion. Back in the 99 and the 2000s, our media was filled with teenage girls chasing and going for their wildest dreams, and I truly believed that’s how life would be when I grew up. Even before that, I remember this one day I was at my mama’s friend's house for the day, and I was hanging out with her eldest daughter. Being an older sister myself, I had to be the one someone looked up to, but I was constantly searching for that for myself. 

One day, I was hanging out with this girl, maybe 3-4 years older than me. I vividly recall watching the classic Little Mermaid movie and telling her I wish I was a mermaid. She proceeded to tell me that I could be a mermaid if I really wished and prayed hard enough and that she even had a friend who became a mermaid, but she could never come back to land. 

“My friend has been a mermaid for a year; she loves it. The only thing is you can’t come back, and you have to eat rice for the rest of your life,” is the exact words she told me. Me, already the delusional, maybe 6-year-old I was, I told her I loved rice! 

Between that and watching Lizzie McGuire rip through the streets of Rome for her middle school graduation and become an Italian pop star in two weeks and Lola sneaking across the bridge from the suburbs of New Jersey to New York City with her best friend to meet her favorite rockstar, Stu in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, these girls show me that life is about all the memories you can collect. 

Having this type of je ne sais quoi, or being such a wanderlust for life, isn’t for the faint of heart because people think I’m crazy all the time. I *always* feel so misunderstood. They laugh in my face, they smack the lips, they ask a million and one questions about how it’s going to happen…and the truth is I’ve blocked out the how and speak what I want. Then, it truly ends up falling into my lap. In church, they call it having crazy faith , the faith of a mustard seed, right? Some people call it manifesting to the universe. I think with the combination of both and genuinely believing in your dreams and yourself, you have to be psycho enough to really believe all of your imaginations will come true. 

I really thank my parents for keeping me in a child’s place for so long because I’ve learned that maybe this is a result of not letting life harden me. If you read the letter to my upcoming 30s, you know this is very on brand for me. 

It’s been an overnight day of travel, and as I land in 16 minutes in the city of love, I have no idea what to expect. I won this trip through an Instagram contest by having my friends IRL and URL tag me, and I had less than ten days to prepare…I am praying for safety and for my wildest teenage pop star dreams to come true. 

I truly want people, especially black girls and women, to know that whatever you want can be yours if you just go for it. Every day you have is a chance to rebrand and be who you want to be. This is your story, and you’re the author. No one can see your vision because it’s yours, and it belongs to you. At this moment, the vessel you’re in is your playground to explore to the highest heights. It’s only as fun as you make it. 

In the words of my late, great, and dear TT Toya, if you’re bored in life, then that means you’re boring. 

Au revoir and cheers to living life like it’s the weekend forever! 

mwah 💋,

— India Monee’

Remember: “Why not take a crazy chance?

the song of my current era:

Obsessions at the moment:

• song: 4batz featuring Usher - this is the only song that would play on my phone for my 3-hour flight to Charlotte, then an 8-hour flight to Paris. First off, Usher is still so sexy after a million years. Please put these young bulls on because I do get tired of gangbanging. I do want to be wooed by a man these days.

• Topicals Slick Salve

• Anything Love Island-related

• my YouTube channel