What is Valentine’s Day to the Broken-hearted
WHAT’S BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE ON THIS DAY? DEFINING LOVE
Dear Reader,
It has been a long time since I’ve written—nearly two years. You may not recognize my name anymore. You may not remember that you signed up for this newsletter a long time ago. That’s all right. We are both in a place where we need a new beginning.
Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Icess Fernandez Rojas. I’m a writer, an educator, a daughter, a sister, and formerly a girlfriend. I seek to live the life I’ve always wanted – to write, to explore, to experience – and to perhaps do some good along the way.
A long-time and dear friend has recently convinced me to restart this newsletter but to do it as something else. Not as a marketing tool as many newsletters are but as a writing tool. A storytelling tool. His proposal was intriguing and since I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself, I decided to start willy-nilly.
My plan is to move this newsletter to Substack eventually and to write musings about life – living it, loving it, not loving it, etc. I want to write about writing, yes, but also art and what it looks like to see the world the way I do – an Afro-Latina writer with depressive episodes and high-functioning anxiety who loves food a bit too much and who, when she’s really on her A game, enjoys running. I’m also intrigued by education, how people learn, and instructional design.
That is a lot. But my friend assures me that people want to read my take on things.
So, here’s the first letter, the first musing, the first thing I’m doing to write. Living with a broken heart on Valentine’s Day.
Such a cliché, sure, but it’s my cliché, so please allow me the indulgence. It begins with a dress.
Today, I wore a dress to work. Red with white polka dots in a wrap style. Anyone who knows me knows the rarity of this event. I am the type of professor who walks around the classroom the entire time. I have been known to get the bulk of my daily steps in the classroom, helping students understand the intricacies of literary mysteries. Wearing a dress, much less heels, isn’t the most comfortable thing, but I woke up differently today. Less was the heartbreak that began a month ago when my then-boyfriend decided, unceremoniously, to end our relationship.
I didn’t want to hide from what the day represented – love in all its forms. Love for a partner, love for a parent, a sibling, a friend, of self—love and being loved. I had been loved. Briefly but passionately. And from that, I learned that I could love, too truly, completely, and without pre-text. And that being loved was something all beings should feel at least once. The heat of it. The comfort of it. The joy from it.
And that is what I wanted to celebrate today. Love. It exists. Embedded in it are hope and joy. For some of us, it is the final puzzle piece, the thing we need to live a life of fullness – the counterbalance to what is out of balance – jobs, ambitions, obligations. For others, love is the pinnacle of human existence, the trophy for being open or vulnerable to the battle of obtaining it.
Whatever it is, I am excited that love exists, that people experience it, and that it had illuminated my door.
And I guess here’s where I learned my lesson, my dear Reader: The ending should never outshine the beginning.
What I’m listening to…
Today, I give you one of my new favorite songs: “Valentine” by Laufey. I heard this song months ago and instantly fell in love with how it reminded me of the old torch song (think jazz and think Ella Fitzgerald). I heard a cover of it on Instagram and fell several holes until I found it. Laufey is an Icelandic singer-songwriter whose work should be heard with the heart.
What I’m reading …
I finally have my hands on Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami. I have been waiting for this to be available from my library. Murkakami wrote the majority of the essays (which are about writing) pre-pandemic. Essentially the book was out in 2015 but only recently translated.
I have been a fan of his work since reading The Colorless Life of Tsukuru Tazaki. That book rocked me to my core and I learned the masterful art of quietness in writing.
Until next time, Reader
Icess