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We’re Moving to Baltimore!
Life is crazy, dear readers. Life. Is. Crazy. Last fall, I announced my decision to move up to Connecticut. Welp, that was short lived. In typical Xtina fashion, I’m here to let you all know, we’re moving back to Baltimore! If you knew me circa 2010/2011, this may sound strangely familiar. And yet, it is entirely different (but hey, it worked out for me, right?) A couple of years ago, I was forced into the position of redesigning my life and everything I thought it would be. With that, comes processing, changing, re-evaluating and figuring out what serves Bryson and I. Without having my counterpart to bounce these thoughts off of…
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Permission to Be “Ok” and “Not Ok” Moving Forward
A few weeks ago, when I had my overwhelming week, I felt so mentally drained. My thoughts were literally engaging in a mental tug of war. In my last blog post about giving myself permission to grow and live fully again, I spoke about the concept of post-traumatic growth, finding meaning in my life in the face of loss, and shedding some of the resistance to truly moving forward in my life. I’ve been doing a lot of self-work this year, figuring out how to integrate grief into my life now so that I can help myself and, ultimately, help others while still honoring the loss and the gaping hole…
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Permission To Date Again As a Young Widow
A couple weeks ago, I was having A WEEK. Sometimes, all of this can be so, overwhelming. And if there’s one thing I know, nothing productive comes from a feeling of “overwhelm.” So, I gave myself permission to take a day off from work for no reason at all except to work through all the messiness happening inside my brain. And what I realized was, it’s time to start giving myself permission. And that, my friends, is the inspiration for this three part blog series. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing three different points of “permission,” starting things off with the heaviest of the three, “permission to date…
