NaraVera

Wander into goodness.

[naravera-blog]

When I am in You

and You are in Me

I am in serenity.

[naravera-blog]

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: I want to be me. The best me ever.

[naravera-blog]

Small Breath

Today, I sat beneath the sky and let myself be.

For twenty golden, halcyon minutes, I let myself taste the joy of doing absolutely nothing.

Except breathing. And being.

I allowed myself to exist--for no particular reason, and for no one else--but me.

Why? Because I am not a number, a figure, or a statistic. I am not my Social Security number, or how much money I make. I am not my age, the circumference of my thighs, or where I got that dress. I am not a GPA, a pawn, an asset, or a risk. I am none of these things.

No, this is not an existential crisis.

Yes, I sat beneath the eternal blue and breathed. In, out. In, out.

It was the single most important thing I did all day.

[naravera-blog]

Iterations

There are times when you get tired of trying. Trying this, trying that. Over and over, over again.

Sometimes, you look back and what you see is a road lined long with failed attempts. Hopes caught on wire, punctured.

A crazy optimist, however, would look at these failures and call them lessons.

This person would point at your tracks in the mud and say, "Look how far you've come. You're on the path of innovation."

This crazy#mad#wise person is your best and truest self. Listen to her.

[naravera-blog]

Authentic Dreaming

After graduating from college, I thought I'd be respectable and work in an office, in a big, glossy building {glassy-eyed giants}. Do the 9 to 5. Have my own desk and chair. Spend my days somewhere high up near the clouds {kiss God's whiskers}, on the 98th floor. Wearing a blouse and pencil skirt, stepping out of a cab in heels, I thought I'd finally fit in, be happy, arrive.

I thought I knew what I was about. Turns out, I didn't know crap.

Experiential knowledge always beats abstract conjecture, hands down. In the months after graduation, in the real world, what I learned about myself:

I hate heels (they make me angry at men... and women... and babies).

I hate cabs (they make me dry heave--is that unattractive?).

I f*cking hate business attire (dressing to impress is overrated).

So I scrapped my old goals + dreams and gave myself permission to start over. I'm glad I threw away my old dreams--they were superficial. They looked good on paper, but in real life felt kinda "meh." They didn't feel magical and inspiring like dreams should, but more like chores on a checklist. They made me feel anxious, not enough, disconnected, boxed in. They were meant to impress everyone but me. They were someone else's dreams {no thank you, keep the change}.

My dreams are just for me. They are what I need. They make me happy. I'm not interested in pleasing my parents // looking cool // impressing people. I'm very interested, however, in impressing myself. At the end of the day, I'm the one who has to sit through my life, right? So...

I let go of who I "know" myself to be.

I let go of who I think I should be.

I let go {so that I can grow}.

[naravera-blog]

Destiny?

I am a blade of grass in a field, in a forest.

When I was young, I used to think I had a Destiny. Wow. Pretty grand stuff.

Now that I'm youngish, my thoughts on that have changed. Who really knows if I have a destiny or not? Even my mom isn't sure anymore. Or maybe it's that my view of destiny has changed. Either way, it's okay with me.

My primary focus now is on learning to love: purely, luxuriously, graciously. Because we can all use a little more heaven in our lives.

All I want is Love.

Love like rain, like freshly laundered sheets still warm and staticky from the dryer, thick like honey, soft, invisible, clearly divine.

{Lavish. Blow-my-candle-out-of-the-lake generous.}

Wonder-inducing. Hypnotic? Clarifying. Prioritizing. Giving life meaning, dammit.

I'm not sure of what I'll do as a Grown-Up--only time will tell.

What I do know: Love is my destiny.