Ximena Vengoechea

Mar 15

Cheat on Your Routine

Sometimes you need to shake things up — Photo by Robert Katzki on Unsplash Last summer, we moved to a new city. After a series of unknowns (housing, school, housing again, a little career confusion for good measure), we’ve finally settled into a routine. We have a school we like for our kiddo, we’re regulars at our local…

5 min read

5 min read

Jan 3

New Year, New Regrets

Embracing our regrets — Photo by Fernando Reyes on Unsplash Happy New Year, and welcome back to Letters from Ximena. In this edition, we talk about how to make sense of our regrets. What better time to look back than the start of a New Year? Maybe it’s getting older, or maybe it’s the…

5 min read

5 min read

Aug 2, 2022

Navigating uncertainty

Your intuition is there for a reason — Welcome to another edition of Letters from Ximena. In this month’s newsletter we talk about how to make decisions in the midst of uncertainty. Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash In many areas of my life, I am quick to make decisions. I know with a ten second glance at…

5 min read

5 min read

Jun 17, 2022

An Actually Restful Vacation

Plus summer reading recs — Hi friends, it’s me again! Welcome back to another edition of Letters from Ximena. Last month, you may have noticed that I missed sending our regular monthly newsletter out. Mea culpa! The month flew by thanks to a much-needed vacation to the Bay Area, where we used to live. …

5 min read

5 min read

Apr 22, 2022

Sleeping Better

It’s the most obvious and ultimate source of rest. So why are so many of us so bad at it? — Welcome to another edition of Letters from Ximena. In this month’s newsletter we talk about how to get better sleep. Photo by Cris Saur on Unsplash Ever since adolescence, I’ve gone through periods where I can’t fall asleep. I can’t stop thinking about all the things I need to do…

5 min read

5 min read

Mar 23, 2022

The Promise of Spring

If any season represents hope, it’s spring — In this third year of the pandemic, it finally got me. Despite being fully vaccinated, boosted, and living a pretty hermit-like lifestyle (still waiting for that kiddo vax) I tested positive for Covid a few weeks ago 😣 . My case was, thankfully, fairly mild. (Thank you science, thank you…

5 min read

5 min read

Feb 15, 2022

Four Things I Learned About Writing by Writing a Book

Six years ago I wrote “For the Love of Writing,” about my love of writing as well as the discipline of it. We think of writing as a romantic, unknowable thing — creative inspiration strikes and we’re off to the races, or it’s suddenly dried up and we have nothing…

Writing

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Writing

4 min read

Feb 11, 2022

Winter Citrus

Finding the color in February — Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels When I was 22, I moved to Paris. I had just graduated college with a plan to enter a PhD program after a year-long adventure in France. (A plan I only kind of stuck to later on.) It was 2008, hardly a hospital economy for…

7 min read

7 min read

Published in Creators Hub

·Jan 12, 2022

To Do Your Work, You Have To Play

How to finish a big creative project without freaking out — This story is behind Medium’s membership paywall, which means the writer earns through our Partner Program. To become a Medium member, click here. It’s month three of my book project — it’s a nonfiction book on the science and practice of rest — and I’m starting to fall into a…

Writing

6 min read

Writing

6 min read

Jan 10, 2022

This Old House

On endings and beginnings — Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash This winter, my parents sold our childhood home. It was a creaky old house (like, 19th century old), the kind that spooked peers in grammar school and fascinated friends in high school. I knew all of its quirks by heart: how to jiggle the…

5 min read

5 min read