Author: Maria Veronica

We spend our nights with our eyes squinched and our views’ blurred, with drinks in our hands and bodies crashing into us. But let me ask you….did you have a good time? Did you put yourself around the people who’d enhance your energy? Was your soul provided for in the purest ways? Were you truthfully and abundantly elated in your most bare form, where you could express yourself so honestly, that nothing else mattered? Was it all a hoax to convince your mind that you were having a good time when in fact, you most certainly were not?

I have found myself asking these questions more and more lately, and frankly, I think it’s more telling of a certain theme in my life currently; finding self-identity and looking for my place in this world. Isn’t that such a nice cliché? A 21 yr old girl, studying her way through college, single, and has no clue what she wants to do, but every clue on what she doesn’t want to do. It’s a tale as old as time. Yet, what I have noticed is that we all, at every stage of life, seem to find ourselves riddled with a longing to overturn new stones; continuously searching for a “deeper” meaning to our lives. This is a universal theme all humans experience multiple times in their lives. We all do it. We all hit that brick wall that makes us stop and think, “Is this where I should be in my life right now”?

I think there is some comfort in knowing that we as humans are all in the same boat whether we like it or not. However, when you think about it that way, it almost unveils the masks of these “perfect” lives people supposedly live. It breaks the pressure of living a life of “shoulds”. And yes, it also, on some level, takes away the uniqueness of our journeys and strips it down to the basic template that has in fact been worked with before. This is not to say that your journey or story is not unique, though. I mean it to be quite the opposite actually. I think there is nothing better than having a template that still allows for the ability to recreate and reshape it into something magical and powerful in one’s own rights. The very definition of creativity is recreation; fiddling with a certain aspect of something already made and extracting something new from it. To me, that’s what it means to write your story.

So next time you feel drained, ask yourself, am I doing what my soul needs from me or am I doing what I think I should be doing? Take the template and mold it to fit your life. And while you’re recreating, keep in mind if you were supposed to be doing something, you’d be doing, and if you’re not, that means you’re meant to do something different with your journey.

Hey there!

I hope you have been finding the passages from this blog interesting and intuitive. I hope they’ve been inspiring new thoughts in your mind so that you can think about the world from a different perspective.

I realize I haven’t posted much since January. In fact, I haven’t posted anything at all! And I wish I could say I’ve had a good reason for it, but truthfully,  I have let school, and work take up most of my creative time, therefore, I have not put much time into my blog as I would have liked. :(insert sad face here): However, once I figured that out and realized that I can no longer let that happen, something clicked and I decided some things needed to change.

I took a hard look at what I needed from my life and what my life needed me. I had a conversation with myself and said, “Maria, what is bringing you joy? What is making you happy? What have you not done this summer that you have wanted to do but couldn’t because of school or work or any other commitment, that yes is important, but might not necessarily be what’s important in your life now at this point in your life”? So I pulled up my calendar on my computer, looked it over, and said: “What needs to go”? I made decisions; hard ones that needed to be done. Had some conversations with people I trusted and cared about, and who I knew cared about me, reorganized my mind, changed my mindset and shifted gears to position myself in a planning state now, so I can achieve my goals later. I gained more perspective and made yet another decision to act intentionally, more deliberately with my life.

So this is my “checking – in” post. My post to let you guys, my faithful audience know that, I am alive, I am excited and I am ready to shift gears towards the next steps in Veronica.Visions and in my life! Big things will be coming in my schooling, my work and my everchanging, evolution-oriented life project that is Veronica.Visions.

Stick around for a while! You might want to see what happens here, in my (our) little corner of the world 🙂

I want to be the girl you can’t stop thinking about. The first person you think of in the morning and last person you think about before you drift off into your dreams, where you’ll meet me for a rendezvous in some far off place your mind has conjured up, with the utmost concealment, yet just as much exposure, where our souls can be free but simultaneously secret in the most private of ways.

I want to be that girl that when you awaken, and your eyes are greeted by the sunlight, that dream continues into day and the yearning for my presence persists indefinitely.

I want to be the source of your heart pounding in your chest so hard when you’re next to me that you have no other choice but to press your lips against mine, holding me so close, feeling the rhythm of our beating hearts is what drives every move to the definitive destination where our souls become one.

I want to be the girl you have those fun times with that are just too good to share. And I want to be the girl who makes the hard times a little bit easier just by a simple look, or touch. I want to be all of that, and so much more, but in fact, only time will tell who will be the person who encounters that journey with me.

Because when all is said and done, I need a mate who understands it’s a loving process. A loving process through it all, not just when it’s beneficial for one side. Because after all, my mate will understand that only after I’ve fought my battles, climbed my mountains and bared my scars, proving I can stand as a single pillar alone, that a love so pure and passionate is able to blossom from the cracks of the concrete jungle that is my hindrance. Because being that girl for someone else means nothing if I can’t be that girl for myself first.

The night was dark and my body was chilled by the abrasive wind that flew through the air. I stepped through the door threshold, into the house. Surrounding me was warm, gold lighting as my nose was met with the scent of holly and pine mixed with the delicious food that was being prepared in the kitchen. The big picture was a blur, people, objects, everything. Nothing seemed to come into focus. Not until I walked to the kitchen and noticed a prominent figure sitting at the head of the table.

Looking at me from across the room was the most unexpected person. It was Nonna. The woman who encompassed the meaning of faith, forgiveness, and family. I was so frozen in shock, all I could do was drop to the floor in tears. But my crying was not in sadness, it was simply out of shock, awe, but mostly joy. I was overwhelmed by the sight of the woman standing before me.

She knelt down, took my hand, stood me up and gave me the biggest hug she has ever given me in my entire life. She embraced me with every bit of love she had. She was wearing the same dress she had worn the most, therefore making it ‘Nonna’s dress’, being in her most humble form. And then she looked at me. She looked at me with her eyes bright and big, and her smile so warm you could get lost in it. She gave me a kiss on the cheek as if it was the first time she had done that in years, her cheek was as soft as I remember.

Then she spoke to me. She looked me in the eye and told me, in her Broken English, Italian, Nonna voice, “Maria, you are so beautiful and I am so proud of the young woman you are turning into. I know you’ve been struggling but just know it will get better. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be. You are strong. You can overcome anything God gives you because you are my granddaughter and you are strong. I am so happy to see the family back together, I know you can all get through anything together because that is how I raised this family. I did not raise this family to be weak, I raised you all to be strong. Everyone is doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing and right where you all need to be. Anything that happens from here on out you will get through it because you all have each other, and that is how it is supposed to be”.

She then gave me another hug and lead me to the dining room table where Nonno was sitting. I greeted him. He then looked at me, looked at Nonna, then looked back at me and said, “Isn’t it great to have her back? She’s been away for too long, it’s so good to see her again after all this time”. And then my dream ended.

It’s funny how even in the afterlife we are greeted by the people our spirit needs the most.

Nonna came at a time when I needed guidance the most in my young adult life. She came when I was in probably the darkest place I have ever been in my entire life. It was the most unexpected visitor I could have gotten face time with and I will remember her message to me forever. Her poise and wisdom graced my soul with the compassion I needed but determination I need more. I know she is watching over me and my family every single day. She is finally in the perfect position to make sure we are all safe and being cared for and also taking care of each other. That’s all she ever wanted for her family – for us to be safe, loved and so confident in ourselves that we are able to conquer whatever it is life throws at us. That’s why when I pray I give it up to her. She is the driving force for my faith and the reason I believe in a higher being, and heaven. Since her passing, she has probably instilled more in me to never turn on my faith because it is so important to have.

So, Nonna, I give this up to you. Everything that I am and everything that I am becoming I give up to you. Thank you for continuously keeping watch over myself and our family. I can only hope we are still making you proud and I am so excited for the day we meet again and I am able to feel your embrace once more. Thank you for always protecting me, it never goes unnoticed.

“I still want to be friends”

“We could still be friends”

“I do think you’re great though, I’d be down to be friends”

Breakups are a funny thing. We spend some time really getting to know someone in different ways than we would just a platonic relationship. We grow attached to their personality, their charisma, their charm; only for it to be taken away from us at a moments notice without any sort of warning. Only to be met with, “I think you’re great though, we can still be friends”. – oof…there it is.

Let me ask you something though. If I’m so great why do you not want to date me?

I have been the girlfriend and I have been the “friend” and going from girlfriend to “friend” only puts off the mourning until later when you’ve grown so sick of lying to yourself that you’ve harbored resentment towards that person. Now, all that’s left are coldness, loneliness and the feeling that you really are not good enough for anyone. it’s vicious and we need to learn to stop putting ourselves in situations that get us to these points. And when I say position, I mean the mentality.

Sure I could be your “friend” but that would only get us so far. I could put a smile on my face, tell you everything is “totally cool” and stuff down that pit in my stomach that wants to explode.

I could entertain the idea that being your “friend” is the best way to help the mourning period and that I am “in total control” of my emotions and how I am feeling. I could answer the half-hearted obligatory text messages that make me feel like “you still care about me” while ignoring the obvious fact that I very well know you’re just doing this to somehow prove you’re not a complete asshole. I could say yes to that one-time-after dinner you will be “so down” to go to, but conveniently, suddenly take me up on my offer to split the bill.

I could reign in all my urges to want to hold your hand, rub the back of your neck while you drive and kiss you at the end of the night, preparing myself for the definitive and concrete absence of the one thing that separates a friendship from a relationship. And to top it off, I could sit on my bed, staring at my phone that one night you finally decide to not text me to see what I’m doing, conjuring painful scenarios in my head of you out with some other person you’d rather kiss instead of me.

I could do all of that but I would be fooling myself for the hundredth time.

Dating is an amazing thing. You learn the typical routines these strangers abide by just to see if they’ll make it past the first few rounds to see if it will work out for their benefit. But you also learn a great deal about yourself in the process.

You learn how much you can actually take, how much you’ll tolerate, and for how long. You figure out that after however many tries, your heart can only hear those words so much and your mind can only allow you to entertain those ideas just the same.

So, yea, I could be your “friend” but I refuse to do that to myself again. I refuse to drag out the pain and become a cold, hollow shell of a person towards another human being, who I probably will never see again. So yea, I could be your “friend” but quite frankly, I really just don’t want to.

And, yea you’re, right, I am great.

I will have upper body strength.

I will have whole body strength to be able to lift myself up over jagged edges and towering boulders that kiss the sky as the clouds cushion the peaks of the obstacle that once stood before me.

I will find strength in mind; my whole mind, that will be the driving force of my willingness to move forward.

And I will have strength in heart; the engine to my entire being- feeding my soul with every beat.

I will have strength. Far more than I do right now.

Take this time to regroup.

Stop beating yourself up.

Wake up tomorrow and do.

Step back, breathe, and approach things differently, more patiently and more thought out.

Slow down bc lately you’ve been getting nowhere fast and that’s an awful feeling. You’ll get where you need to be-which is a good place. Because God won’t let you end up in a bad place.

These are practices that are never ending. They’re ideas that need constant attention and loving support in order to cultivate them in their purest form so that you can become your greatest self.

Love yourself and be proud.

There comes a point in time in life when we make unexpected connections with people we wouldn’t think we’d be close with. Pay attention to those moments, they are so important.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with a friend for dinner and it turned into a beautiful night. We ate dinner, drove around for a bit, but most importantly had great conversation.

We talked about things I never thought we would ever mention in our lives but it just so happened he and I were able to speak to each other in very vulnerable ways. Tonight confirmed that vulnerability does not have to mean opening up your deepest, darkest secrets, yet just speaking in your truest form.

Do not be afraid to be real in a world that is so cynical. Stand for what you believe in, speak your truth and do not be afraid to open up to unexpected people. Go out in the world, experience life in its rarest form, open yourself up to new possibilities that can move you in ways you never thought to be real or even exist. But most importantly, love yourself. Believe in who you are and nothing can stop you.

Speak your truth, because even if no one agrees, they can’t take that away from you.

Messes can be cleaned.

Life is messy, but without messes we wouldn’t know how to appreciate when things were clean. It’s the same thing as never knowing success unless you fail. In a world where there’s more to worry about than spilled milk, messes should be the least of our troubles.

Being 20 and knowing as much as I can know at 20, I notice that the people around us young kids, the older people, seem to worry about things in my life as if they are affected by them directly. They seem to give advice as if they were in the situation themselves and with all due respect, they are not even the ones who are in our situations. Yes the advice comes from a good place and especially if they are a parent, of course they’re going to want to protect us best they can. But there comes a time when they need to let us make our own messes and better yet, let us figure out how to clean it.

Remember when we were little and we would spill a drink? Your mom or dad or whoever took care of you went to go get a paper towel and they wiped it up. But before they did they made sure you knew spilling your drink was a no no and that you should “be more careful next time”, and right in between getting the paper towel and cleaning up, they made sure they grumbled about how they’re wasting “yet another paper towel”. If life isn’t messy then why do paper towels exist? There are going to be some spills in life, some we can avoid and some we can’t. But just because a spill happened doesn’t mean you’re wrong or it’s bad. It just means you fumbled but there’s always a way to get the clean counter top back.

If you fumble in life, there’s always resources to help you get back on your feet. There’s people, places, and all sorts of different outlets to help you build yourself up again. Don’t be afraid to use them. Don’t be afraid to reach out in ways you wouldn’t normally because you never know what could really be the thing that helps you clean up your mess.

Do not be afraid of making a mess because messes can always be cleaned.

We have these people in our lives that are here on this earth and more times than not we find reasons not to have them in our lives and I just want to tell you that when I say I love you I mean I love that you’re in my life and that  I will do anything to keep you in it bc this is too important to let it fall through the cracks, this means too much and we’re too strong a team to let stupid menial things get in the way.

That was a text I sent to my boyfriend right after I finished an episode of One Tree Hill. This episode ended with two people- a boyfriend and a girlfriend- fighting for their lives after getting shot. Now I know it sounds cliche, you must be thinking “oh God another hopeless romantic writer whose desperately trying to prove love exists in the world”. But I say this with the most real, and vulnerable words I can speak.

My point with this is to tell you that we have people in our lives that leave, sometimes too easily. As a society we have become so emotionally detached and numb to the real tragedies that happen in the world and in our own lives.

I was scrolling through Facebook late at night one time and came across a quote that said something like this, ” I’ve become so emotionally numb to my own trauma in life I’ve had to face that when other people hear it their reaction is weird to me bc I’m so used to it now”.  We should not be living like this.This country has only been around just over 200 years, yet we have advanced so rapidly, that we have become immune to even the accidents that should get the same amount of heads to turn.

We should not be reacting to television shows more than we do our own lives. We now live in a world where we look at computer screens and scroll through our newsfeed and pay attention only when someone takes the device out of our hand, holds our face between their two hands and says, “hey look up for once”.

I not only sent that text, but published it so that it would be words the world could read. They are words that can mold to every type of relationship, not just romantic. We need to fight harder for the relationships we have because without bridges we built how did we ever get moving, how do we ever keep going?

If we see a bridge is about to burn, do not continue to watch it go up in flames, try to find anything in your surroundings to put it out. The only thing that should make your decision to stop and let the bridge burn, is if you see the person on the other side, who helped build that bridge is standing there, watching you in a panicked frenzy. They’re there, watching you put everything you can possibly find, in and around yourself to try and stop the bridge from burning. If they’re helping you on the other side fight harder, if they’re standing there, just starring then let it burn. That bridge held you both up for as long as it could until it couldn’t anymore. Relationships are so important in life we cannot let them escape our grasp so quickly.

Say I love you more to the people who you do love (and again love doesn’t have to be romantic). Tell them you’re proud of them. And even on the days you don’t particularly care for their attitude or whatever it may be that’s bugging you, tell them you like them even still. Because “you can love someone, but you can’t always like them”. Something my dad always says to me, ” I love you but I like you. I like the person you have become and the person you continue to become so I like you. But I love you because you’re my daughter and I’m so proud and happy to be your dad”.

So say I love you more and tell more people to text or call when they get home to make sure they’re okay. Knowing someone is safe makes all the difference in the world.