We were lucky to catch up with Monique Timby recently and have shared our conversation below.
Monique, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
My story may look like everyone else’s grief story, or it may look completely different.
I grew up in what was once a small town that quickly grew into something none of us locals could have imagined…
I never once thought I would be a victim of trauma & violence. I don’t think any little girl or boy thought “Wow, thanks for bringing me into a world where I’m about to be wrecked with an insane amount of emotional damage and then some. Maybe add some death in there, maybe some sexual abuse as well”
As I got older, I found myself jumping from major to major, job to job trying to find my niche. Of course, being the youngest and the only girl in a family of 6 you can imagine how quickly I grew up. I was around older people my whole life and when I think about it, I didn’t have many friends my own age. I was confused and jaded a lot of the time with who I am and who the world wanted me to be. I was this curly headed light skin girl that felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. As I got older, I decided to quit school because paying my bills was more important to me than learning a career, at least it was at the time. It was 2012, I found myself working for the place everyone went to go get pies. Yep, good old Marie Callenders. Home of the famous lemon meringue pie and a very intense salad bar that everyone’s grandmother seemed to be pumped about. I didn’t know it yet, but my life was about to change. Meeting new people was always a highlight of mine but I kept myself strongly reserved at the same time. Josh was a familiar face, one that I’ve known since middle school and one that I was very fond of. He was this tall 6 ‘3 hunk of a man that had pierced ears with a heart of a small kitten and the sass of a 70yr old man who smoked way too much weed. You know, a gem of a man. Yes, if you’re all wondering, I did tell him to ask me out on a date because there was no way I was letting this one go, and I didn’t.
It was February 4th, 2018, super bowl Sunday. The Philadelphia Eagles were playing the New England Patriots and the team Josh was rooting for was slowly losing. You can see the disappointment on his face quickly getting deeper into his soul. I wasn’t sure what to do as I wasn’t a fan of either team, but I knew some sort of support needed to be shown. After the game, he asked if San Francisco sounded appetizing and although I loved the city, driving two hours at 9pm didn’t sound the best but I said, “Fuck it, life is short, and I’ll never be 24yrs old driving to SF on a Sunday at 9pm with the love of my life again”. We went home to grab a blanket, because I knew his ass was going to want the windows down, found the closest Starbucks that was open at that time and headed down highway 580. Listening to our favorite music, talking about life, love, and everything in between and found ourselves closer than we ever had been in the last 5yrs we spent with each other. We found ourselves sitting on a bench on one of the piers, watching a couple of people fish off the dock at 11pm at night. We were talking about ghosts and if we think they live in any of the boats that were docked. Imagining their names and what they were good at, how many siblings they had, if they dealt with problems. Before I knew it, I was crying over people I didn’t even know and how I wished they had more life to live. You see, I guess you can say I’ve always been a deep feeling person. One with hopes and dreams and doubts and beliefs. But I often worried about the end result without even trying first. Maybe it stemmed from my dreams being turned down when I was younger by the people around me. Never a “you’re not good enough” but always a “There’s no career in that” or “I can’t see you doing that forever” type thing. It was very discouraging and being the youngest and the only girl you can imagine how I felt and how I looked at life.
The night josh took me to SF, sat me down on that bench and overlooked some haunted ships, he proposed. I cried again and then again and I’m sure one or two more times that night. It just took him a good 5 years to do so but ya know, who was counting. If I’m being completely real, this isn’t a story of me getting married, this is a story of taking a risk. When josh died in that car accident on July 12th 2019 on his way home from work, I had no idea where life would take me. At the time, I didn’t want life to take me anywhere except 9ft underground next to my husband, but God had other plans for myself as well as the people around me. About three months after losing my husband and our unplanned child from a miscarriage, I found myself in Portland Oregon. A place that a girl that was born and raised in California should never live especially if you are grieving and used to sunshine. The constant rain and grey clouds were menacing and quickly became a damper in my already dampened mood. I needed a fresh new start and moving to the place my husband was born and raised and where his family still lived was the place I thought I should be at that time. During the time I spent in Portland, I found myself bouncing from home to home. Leaving tears behind in every inch and crevice I spent time in. I tried smiling since everyone and their mother was telling me I needed to try smiling more. Apparently, I was too depressing to be around. I needed to try and be happy with life, like my husband and my future with him didn’t just get taken from me in the matter of seconds, no big deal. When I tried smiling more, I was being judged because “How dare her try and be happy with life!”. I remember the first Christmas I spent without Josh or my immediate family, I was in a grocery store buying a can of soup when the song “I’ll be home for Christmas” came blaring through the Albertsons speakers. I was alone and the feeling of anxiety came over me and I couldn’t move. It felt like I was glued to the floor and every eye that was in that building was staring at me and judging me. I couldn’t help but tear up at the fact that I was very much alone and the feeling of “Winning” would never be a feeling I could get.
When I say winning, I simply mean with my own life. Everyone around me was telling me I needed to feel this way, or I couldn’t feel that way or at least I shouldn’t feel that way and when I do, I should do this to get my mind off whatever it was I was feeling and or thinking. I felt like everyone else around me was succeeding with life and I was the one person in the world that got shit on. Everyone was forcing me to eat their words and their past experience’s and how they coped with their situations. I felt like I was being pulled in every direction except the direction I wanted to go. Although, I had no idea what direction that was, I knew it wasn’t the one everyone else thought I should go. So, I started applying to places, I had very little money to my name, and I knew I needed to start working. My father taught me how to be a very independent woman, to work hard, to be able to stand on my own two feet without needing anyone. I hated learning how to paint, how to mow a lawn, pull weeds, how to weld, how to change my own oil, how to use power tools. Remember I was in a house full of men, I had no choice in the matter except to learn these things. It wasn’t until I was left alone when I realized what my father was actually preparing me for all those years. He was preparing me for this moment. This moment he never imagined his daughter would ever have to go through. An experience I never knew I was going to have to go through.
Flash forward, I wanted to try and be “normal”, whatever that really meant at the time. If Josh wanted one thing for me, it was to be able to uncontrollably smile again. So, I started taking photos again, started taking myself on hikes, picnics, ate my favorite foods, cooked, and baked more. Things that brought me some sort of joy. I even started dating this dude and although I was telling myself “Girl it’s too soon, everyone is going to judge you” which they did…. I didn’t care. For the first time and I truly mean for the first time, I didn’t care what people thought of me, what I was doing, how I looked, what I ate. I didn’t care at all which was a scary thing. Coming from someone who was a people pleaser, not caring was and is a huge deal for me. I knew I needed to start choosing me, more. I tried working, I tried talking more, tried to be that entertainer I once was, let’s just go all in at this point of “normalcy” and see if anyone notices I’m secretly dying from a heart break. Every morning, putting my feet on the ground was a challenge. I didn’t want to live; I didn’t want to even to have the capabilities to get out of bed. Super cynical of me I know. At the time my feelings were my feelings and I wanted to be sure I felt EVERYTHING. Shortly after, I was diagnosed with PTSD. My family was so sick of me telling them to call me when they got home or to text me when they get on the road etc. Anxiety came through like a bag of bricks if I didn’t get that call or that text. It got to the point where I have all my loved one’s locations and they know they have no choice on the matter.
I often think back at the time everything happened; everyone was coping in their own different ways. People were surprised I didn’t turn to anything that would potentially “numb the pain”. My grandmother always taught me that “even in your darkest moments, feel every feeling and be unapologetic about it”. So, I did. I felt everything all the time and was unapologetic about it. Which was strange for me because I really wanted to be sorry especially that time I randomly started crying in that Starbucks because our wedding song came on. That one I should have maybe said sorry for because I was ugly crying, like drool and everything. It was not cute and I’m sure I scared a little boy. I was breaking and everyone around me truly didn’t matter, at all.
Ryan never once felt uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, he encouraged me to show my emotions. He encouraged me to be me, to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think it might have helped him heal in a way as well. Ryan was Josh’s childhood best friend who I had met at one of the fundraisers my community was having for Josh shortly after he died. Ryan was someone I always wanted to meet but never had the chance. Josh used to tell me so many funny and heartwarming stories of them two together, made me feel like I was missing out on something from my childhood. When I met Ryan, my grief settled in a little heavier. The last thing I wanted was to meet his childhood best friend at his friend’s funeral. I didn’t really know what to do except hug him and tell him I’m sorry. I felt so dumb and unloving but that was all I could give at that point of my grief.
The few months after burying my husband, was an experience. One that I wish to never re-live. One I wish to never get back. I was tired. Drained to the max and all I wanted to do was be on a private island, alone and with my thoughts. Which is not the healthiest thing to do but I felt that it was healthy for me. Instead of flying to a private island where I can sleep my life away, I moved to Portland. The place where I learned a lot about myself, particularly who I was without Josh and who I want to be. I always tell people “The experiences that you experienced in your life are the things that make up who you are”. People won’t be with you forever and as prominent as that was in my life, a lot of people didn’t care and left. All I wanted was to move forward with my life the best way I knew how, and people didn’t like that. Close friends that I had for years decided to remove their name from my friend roster. I was confused, lost and severely broken. I felt like the people who once knew me, didn’t know me, and refused to continue to try to get to know the new me. I was always taught to love, love even the ones who have hurt you. With that, I developed a very muted voice. I never spoke up when people were hurting me. I just forgave them and continued to love them….
You see, I was afraid of losing people. I just lost someone and had no control in how I lost him. I had a tendency to put my feelings aside and please the ones that were not mine. Apparently making others happy gave me some sort of “boost”. Or at least I thought. But that quickly began to change the moment I started to choose me instead.
Choosing you is the hardest thing to do in life. I don’t care who says it’s not because it truly is. Especially when everyone was so used to “taking” from you and then when you asked for any if not all of it back, they refused to give it to you. I took a risk. A risk to firmly choose me and my future. It was hard and it continues to be, not even going to lie. But I realized something, when people can’t take from you anymore, they will find any reason to make you feel like you are in the wrong. I knew what I was doing for the first time in my life, for me and only me. They didn’t lose a husband, I did. They didn’t have to go through what I went through; I did. I was in such a disbelief with the things that transpired. It took me a good year if not more to really be ok with the people I lost in the process of choosing me. Lots of podcasts, lots of “forgiving” books, lots of therapy, lots of prayer. I wanted to better understand my feelings and the feelings that were projected on me for simply choosing myself. The feeling of regret was settling in. I will tell you, that happens when you are not used to doing things for you. Risks are scary but also important especially when it comes to starting over. It was like starting from scratch but without any ingredients or directions.
Life is exactly what YOU make it. You & God are the ones calling the shots and nobody else gets to tell you otherwise. Taking that risk brought me to where I am today. I challenge you to stop being afraid to take that risk, you know, that one everyone is telling you to not do, that one that makes you feel all nervous and unsure inside, that one that makes you feel like you’re on the edge of your seat. Take that risk and see where life will take you. I promise you won’t regret it.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a 30yr old biracial women that had a passion for being Infront the camera. When I was younger, my mom had this friend named Dayna who sold Mary Kay. She would often come over and try to sell my mom products knowing my mom was never much of a make-up person. I would beg my mom to let me wear some and perhaps do a fashion show none of them asked for. The love I have for fashion quickly grew from that moment on. Although I was a tomboy thanks to having all brothers and no sisters, I still had a passion for fashion and all things girly. My mom always told me I was built for the runway with the numerous outfit changes I did on the daily.
Modeling came naturally to me. I took what I learned in the 12 years I did ballet and incorporated it in my movements in front of the lens. I was often told I’m really good at telling a story with my eyes and after all that I went through, I definitely had a story to tell. I enjoy bringing emotion into a set, I didn’t want to be like the rest, I wanted to be like me. I didn’t look like all the other models though. I had stretch marks all over my knees up to my hips. My hair was big and uncontrollable, and I just felt different. I felt like the dream I wanted, did not want me and every time I mentioned it to my parents, I felt like they knew that as well. So, I tried other things. Got into the medical field because my father always said, “the world will always need people in the medical field”. I signed up for Phlebotomy school when I was 22. At the time, making my parents proud was the only thing that I strived for. Probably where the people pleasing came into effect. After the program was over and I passed my state test, I applied to a few different places, but something just felt extremely off. I didn’t fit in. The medical field, although it’s amazing and I learned so much, it just wasn’t for me. It took me having a sit down with my parents for them to truly understand how I felt about it. It was hard for me because I felt like I was letting them down and possibly myself. I was lost. Caught between a crossroads of doing what I wanted and doing what the people around me wanted. I decided to go back to school to study journalism because writing was a huge hobby of mine and I always enjoyed writing what went on in my brain. It was a way for people to see what I see and how I felt deep inside. Made it about a year into school when I was tired of being a broke college student. That’s when Marie Callenders came into play. I quit school to pay my bills and all the debt I accumulated in that one year I was trying to better my life. I knew I couldn’t do work and school. My attention span didn’t go that far. I was 19 and after a year of serving up pies and loving the love of my life for a good 6 months, I moved out of my hometown to none other than Los Angeles Ca. My cousin was a huge influence in my life and offered up her couch to me until I landed a job and was able to pay her rent. I knew in LA, if I really wanted to model, that would the best place to start, and my cousin was a great supporter of that. Whole Foods hired me three days into my new journey as a barista/ juicer at the Santa Clarita location. I didn’t understand the LA scene or at least the scene everyone was telling me about. I genuinely feel that LA was a normal city just like any other major city. Many people were chasing their dreams and who was I to judge how they got there. I met so many extraordinary people while living there. I will never forget the time I spent in that city; I learned many things about myself including how I wanted my life to go. I guess that’s when I had my “spiritual awakening”. Shortly after I moved back to my hometown, I started a Model Mayhem account. It was website where other fashion related folk would post jobs and or collaborations they were working on at the time or in the future. I remember my first ever model casting. It was In Fremont Ca about an hr and a half from my hometown. The casting was more towards the evening time which I thought was odd, but I was new to the modeling game, so I unfortunately didn’t know any better. I arrived approximately at 5:58pm. Exactly enough time to call my boyfriend Josh to help me stick it out. I developed a small dose of anxiety as a teenager, and it stuck with me for a long time. I had a tendency to sike myself out of from something I wanted to do and tell myself I wasn’t good enough. Trauma response maybe? I got myself together and found myself inside this office space that had a few other rooms in it. There was a young lady sitting at a desk that had some paperwork in front of her and then there was two older gentlemen in the other room. I wore this long teal evening dress that had straps about two inches wide. I told them my background; how old I was and what I wanted to do with a career in modeling. They seemed thrilled. Way more thrilled than anyone would have expected from these three. But I ate it up, felt like I was on top of the world, and I was going to go far. About an hour into the shoot, numerous comments that put me in a choke hold were said. I was afraid that if I spoke out about how uncomfortable I was, all the things promised would be taken from me. I wanted this so badly and wanted to prove myself and to the world that all the decisions I made to get here were worth it. Right before I was about to leave, they sat me down and talked about the rest of the evening. I told them I had plans to leave in the next 5 minutes because it was getting late, and I needed to get back home. One of the guys started talking about how he used to massage people and how he had these magical hands that can rid an individual from tension. Before I knew it, I had a man’s hands rubbing my neck that worked his way down to my breasts. I was taken advantage of, and I didn’t know what to do. I was scared and uneducated on the means of this current situation. I just remember telling him “Thank you, I’m good” and “Thank you I got to get going now”. Every time I said that or anything for that matter his grip got tighter and tighter. I finally just stood up, imagining what I would have to do if things got worst. I quickly grabbed my bag and started my way out the entrance. I was asked if I wanted someone to walk me to my car to make sure I was ok. I picked up my phone and called Josh right away just so he can be on the phone with me incase anything happens. That was the longest walk to my car. I felt like my car was a mile away when really it was just 5 spaces down. I had no idea what was going to happen next, but my car was my only safe space. On the way home, the tears just kept flowing. I felt like everything my parents said was right and I made the biggest mistake of my life. To this day, my parents still don’t know what happened, up until they read this. (Sorry mom and dad, I love you) I’m not telling you this for pity, I’m telling you this because this is what I went through to get some form of clarity, it just sucks that it had to happen this way. That didn’t stop me though. I kept going. I ended up getting signed to two different smaller agencies that helped me get to where I am today. I developed a strong love for content creating just by simply telling people more about my life and what was blooming behind the photo being shared. I got really good at it, I started getting brands like Dior, H&M, Target asking me to work with them and I was getting paid! Just for taking photos and explaining my feelings or what I did that day. But it went deeper than that, I felt like people could actually see the feeling I was trying to get across. I was told it made me a real person and not this facade other content creators were portraying. I loved doing it and I still do! At this point in time Josh and I are married, and I was able to quit my job at the local coffee shop at a shift lead and focus on my career. Josh quickly learned the ropes of photography and started taking all my photos for me. I even ended up creating my own studio in my house that had three different colored backdrops and a tripod with some lighting essentials. He loved being a part of my craft and I loved being a part of his. After he died, everything was put to a halt and if you read the other part of my story, you can understand why. Everything that involved me, and any future I thought I was going to have was dead or at least that’s what I felt at the time. It wasn’t until about a year after Josh passed where I started to feel like I could possibly do anything I loved. Before I knew it, I had a Canon 6D in my hands that brought so much life out of a photo, I wanted it to do that for me. So, I stepped in front of it and cried often while doing so. I just started taking photos of myself doing everyday things and had no means on telling a story with them, but I slowly was. Brands started reaching back out randomly and I responded. It was that simple but so complicated at the same time. I still feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing. Maybe I’m doing everything wrong. Or maybe I’m doing everything right. I guess I’ll spend whatever time I have left on this earth figuring it out. They always say when one door closes another opens. This passion of mine grew into a want to succeed and help brands succeed. So, I decided to go to school for marketing. I thought what a better way to plan for my future then to learn about what I want to do for that future. All I know is I want to do more; I want to be able to help companies get to a place where they only ever dreamt of being. I want to be on the cover of Vogue magazine not so much for my modeling capabilities but for the change I wish to see in the world. Where not only actors and actresses or fashion models are on the cover but normal people with 9-5pm jobs. I was always taught to dream and to dream until I can’t no more. I graduate this June and I couldn’t be prouder of myself. I know josh is proud of me too. It took a lot of hard work, many doubts and discouragement to get me where I am today. I honestly don’t know if things would have happened any other way if I would even be here writing to you today. God closed a lot of doors I wanted open, just to open them at the time I was ready for them. I’m happy with my life and all who is in it. I’m happy with every decision I made because it got me here and there and everywhere I never knew I was headed. Cheers to taking that leap of faith.
-Monique
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
My hot ass and my beautiful mind
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Being able to tell your story no matter how big or small, a story is a story and a beautiful one at that. I believe that the most rewarding aspect of that is being able to share just a piece or maybe all that you are. It is an honor to know someone. I often think about the world and how many people feel captivated by their own fears of not being able to truly be themselves. I don’t think of myself of an artist, I think of myself as the art itself.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @monique.quintero
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moniquetimby/
- Twitter: @Mrsmoniqueq
Image Credits
Darien Jacobs Lauren Spigno Parm Masuta Aly Montez