In honor of a year on Substack, I wanted to share some stats, talk about “being a writer,” and reshare my first-ever post, “Love to a Valentine’s Baby.”
In my first year on Substack, I’ve released 22 newsletters, started a new section (hello Crit), reached 28 subscribers from 0, and made $135. I’ve shared 10 Crit Pics. I have a cumulative 1,301 cumulative views across all my posts. I’ve lost 1 subscriber. I published an essay. And most notably, I haven’t used Twitter (more ridiculously, X). But my Instagram and YouTube usage could use some work.
I was at a party last night where we were playing We’re Not Really Strangers. Half the group was French, the other half American. The question came up “What is a dream that you’ve let go of?” Immediately one of the French women, a lawyer, answered that she’d given up the dream that she’d ever be an artist. Immediately the American half of the room piped up with “NO, no, you can always be an artist! Just start making art!” To the French, it was the most American thing we could say. And it is very American to say that you can always chase a dream and do it even if you’re bad at it. American individualism and exceptionalism are pervasive in daily life. I don’t often like to be American, but I do find value in the idea of claiming you can be what you want to be. It’s basically what I’ve done in the last year: Called myself a writer because I decided that I am one.
In many ways, my year on Substack is about my year of writing for myself. Allowing, and sometimes forcing, myself to write whatever comes to my mind is a practice I intend to continue for the rest of my life. Every decade of your life you have a new epiphany that amounts to a deeper understanding of what would make your life better, worth it, yours. It took half of my twenties to find writing, and as I celebrate another birthday for myself, I also celebrate the first birthday of my dedicated writing habit. I’ve always been a writer, as is everyone who’s ever said something, but I think when a writer calls themself a writer, that’s something different.
At times I’ve doubted everything about this and wondered if anyone cares, if I’m doing something insanely obnoxious by assuming people want to read my silly newsletters. Like who even does newsletters or blogs anymore? I’ve spent weeks riddled with imposter syndrome, seesawing between “I’m so out of touch” and “What is life if not a trial of experiments to find joy.” I have my share of the French voice in the background, asking myself how could I be a writer when I don’t make a living that way, very few have acknowledged me as a writer, I have no formal schooling in creative writing, and I’ve only done it a year. A large part of me didn’t want to call myself a writer until I had something published, but all publishing has done is confirm that I was a writer before someone else told me I was. We can wallow in our have-nots or we can stride through life with all the confidence of a trust fund baby who’s convinced he worked hard to earn his money.
“Love to a Valentine’s Baby” is still my most popular post, and in all fairness, I understand why. I’ve transitioned away from posting some of my more reflective and narrative writing in favor of workshopping and submitting them to online publications. I read this piece now and I see lots of things that I would do differently. I see a wavering, uncertain voice vying for recognition like an insecure child raising their hand to say the right answer in class. I see someone trying to condense years of emotion and experiences into something digestible. I see an embrace of creativity and a liberation from fear. I see the root of what I want the world to be, a vision of life through the lens of love.
Trepidation abounds in my writing and that’s why I keep doing it. My eyes are fixed on the horizon, fixed on another year of being after.
Love to Valentine’s Baby
“Date of birth?”
“02/14…”
“Oh, Valentine’s Day. How’s that?”
You’d think I would have come up with a dazzling, witty response to this by now but I still find myself staring at whatever clinic receptionist or pharmacist thinking, “Oh great, you know your days of the year.” I mean, in truth, it is kinda nice to get a special reaction to my birthdate, it’s a splash of fuel for my ego, an additional fun fact that makes me more a droplet more interesting in print. But is being born on Valentine’s Day really another flower in the bouquet, or simply another thorn on the rose?
To continue the endless supply of V-Day puns, being a Valentine’s baby is like a box of chocolates: “You never know what you’re gonna get.” As with any other birthday, some are a delightful surprise of love unbound, whereas others leave a sour, unpleasant taste in your mouth — But this time, regardless, there’s lots of chocolate. In some ways, a V-day B-day hardly differs from other birthdays — they change with age and bear the potential to end with a night of lonely tears. Only, a V-day B-day means that others will also likely join you at the end of the night with lonely tears or bitter hearts. Having a birthday on Feb. 14th involves a sit-down conversation with your SO regarding an apology for their involuntary conscription into the dinner reservation Olympics, so they should probably start thinking of reservations on the very first day of the new year. It also means that I am a quite literal symbol of my parents’ love for one another, a timely fruit of marriage, and an apt date for almost being named Valentina (Thank god we dodged that one). My family made it a point to make sure I felt appreciated for both occasions, and I really should have taken a page from that book early on, yet I’ve never been able to shake the odd, enigmatic feeling that comes with the day. It’s taken time, but I’ve finally learned to shuck the chalky bitterness of the candy hearts and red-hot anxieties of my birthday and view it for what it is: A day of deep interpersonal connection and care.
As a child in grade school, Valentine’s Day meant red and pink and purple, cut-out hearts and cupids, a variety of silly store-bought cards, and a classroom party with lots of candy. To young me, all of this was in celebration of my birthday, naturally. Of course, I had some understanding that it was a holiday that others also celebrated, but I found it hard to articulate my desire to feel special on my birthday when everyone around me used that same day as their opportunity to show their feelings for their special someone. Not to mention, I had my fair share of birthday slumber party nightmares e.g. Temper tantrums from guests resulting in a broken coffee table leg, light bullying for picking a “scary” movie at the theater party (it was the Spiderwick Chronicles), a novella involving someone’s 5th-grade boyfriend deciding he wanted to date me instead because I had just turned 11 and my mom said I could “date.” But what was about gifts, goodies, and playground drama as a child slowly grew into general disappointment with the larger attitude towards Valentine’s Day as a teenager and an adult. Suddenly, we were all too cool to show love, but if you’re single, it’s beyond that. It’s an active hate campaign against the day. The surge of anti-valentine sentiment and surplus of discussion on the day’s overhype meant I was met with a “Yikes” in response to my birthday.
I really owe everything to Leslie Knope. Galentine’s Day (or Calentine’s Day, a term coined by a dear friend) revolutionized the day for me and basically the whole world. It wasn’t just an excuse for girls to get together and dress up for lunch, it became a call to action to shower our friends with the same attention and care that was previously reserved for only romantic interests. When you’re accustomed to your birthday being overshadowed by your own and others’ petty relationship pitfalls and embittered loneliness, a chance to embrace the abundance of love in your life changes your perspective on the world. It changes the photo filter on the month of February, putting everything through the lens of the world’s most charming, rosiest-tinted glasses. Life flowers like a Hallmark movie (or a local government's parks department) and you see the people you care about living, laughing, and loving instead of hating, dreading, and stressing. For all the people who joined me in celebrating my birthday, I am able to sit across them and say that, truly, we are celebrating our relationships with one another. Calentine’s Day made a difference in my ability to see my birthday outside of the desperate, constant need for romantic validation that consumes many of us on that day. After all, isn’t it just a giant ploy by ad companies and marketing execs to drive consumer demand?
Regardless, this year my mom surprised me with a delivery of flowers and a Milk Bar Birthday Cake: “I didn’t want you to miss out on your birthday because of Valentine’s Day.” As I sipped a glass of white wine while enjoying my cake, my mind wandered to my plans for Italian food with my best friends and my upcoming day of bagels, the Met, and Mediterranean food with my boyfriend. I thought of all the things people have done for me in the past, from throwing parties for me to simple and sweet birthday messages. The rosy tint of February covered my eyes and I was in love. The tears that came to my eyes haven’t fallen yet, but when they do, they’ll be from the swell of a heart overflowing with connection and care for those around me.
