Știu că nu te aștepți să-ți vorbească cineva în română aici, dar bear with me, că e o ocazie specială (iar la un scroll distanță găsești varianta în engleză). Eu sunt Nicoleta Rădăcină, editoare și project manager, abia ajunsă în echipa UNFINISHED, iar azi îți scriu despre cel mai important proiect al meu aici – și poate cel mai frumos ever – UNFINISHED LOVE STORIES, o platformă editorială care publică povești de dragoste moderne, adevărate și imperfecte în limba română.
Sigur ai mai auzit de proiect, poate ai fost chiar parte din public la UNFINISHED #22, când Daniel Jones, editorul rubricii de mega-succes, Modern Love, din ziarul The New York Times, a selectat povești de iubire scrise de comunitatea UNFINISHED pentru ce era atunci doar un proiect special din cadrul festivalului.
Feedback-ul vostru (50% dintre participanți au spus că și-ar dori să experimenteze din nou UNFINISHED LOVE STORIES) și vulnerabilitatea și curajul pe care ni le-ați arătat ne-au convins că trebuie să găsim un spațiu permanent pentru poveștile vindecătoare care ne reamintesc ca nu suntem singuri; nici singurii.
Azi e ziua în care facem publică platforma cu mai bine de 10 povești de iubire în sens larg, din care amintesc: povestea cuplului care s-a luat la trântă cu infertilitatea până a decis să înceapă o călătorie de adopție; povestea fiicei care și-a urmat mama sus-jos pe munte fără să întrebe „de ce” în cele mai grele momente; povestea prieteniei care rămâne peanut butter & jelly-like, deși navighează o despărțire geografică; povestea unei surprize ratate, urmată de o despărțire din neant; povestea cererii în căsătorie la care martori au fost pisicile, plus un teanc de vase nespălate.
Toate vor avea momentul lor de strălucire, căci le publicăm în fiecare duminică dimineața și pe Hotnews.ro. Săptămâna aceasta, sperăm că va circula în tot grupul tău de prieteni povestea lui Luluts și a lui Zvâc,, despre o prietenie delicioasă ca un peanut butter jelly sandwich.
Citește-le și trimite-ne și tu povestea ta de dragoste modernă – despre cum navighezi datingul în 2024, ce te-au învățat relațiile la distanță, cum te-ai reconectat cu mama sau tatăl tău după o perioadă de liniște sfâșietoare sau cum ai învățat să let go, îngrijind un animăluț. Ne găsești la [email protected].
Now, our English version, in a much detailed and personal iteration.
As you may have noticed, our newsletter is migrating towards a longer format, in order to be able to dig a little deeper into our curiosities and the processes behind all UNFINISHED projects; as well as open larger crossovers between the different voices in our community.
Today’s READ is drafted by me, Nicoleta Rădăcină, a new addition to the UNFINISHED team, editor and project manager of UNFINISHED LOVE STORIES, a crowd-sourced project following the footsteps of The New York Times’ notorious Modern Lovecolumn.
This project holds a dear place in my heart and not only because it’s about love, the one that encompasses all, the one that drives us and moves mountains, the one that acts as a transcendental language, unbounded by age, race or religion, but because it’s the project that brought me back to journalism.
Two years ago I left journalism because I no longer wanted to live tormented by overwhelming news. As I was doing when Russia invaded Ukraine and I woke up to a BBC notification instead of an alarm; or when I literally dreamed the voices of doctors screaming that there were no more places in the hospitals; or when I was listening on repeat to the 112 call of Alexandra Măceșanu, the girl kidnapped in Caracal.
It was my job to know everything that was going on, but I’m sure I’d have nightmares if it wasn’t. As you probably have sometimes, in the midst of today’s bombardment of information and news, both real and, sometimes, fake news that are hard to decode.
Most often than not, everything feels redundant and noisy with everyday tribulations. We are disoriented, floating in a bubble of negative news. The mind ping-pongs between today and tomorrow, on a short term haunted by anxiety. Politically, we don’t feel there is much left to do. We are done with the old ones, the new ones disappointed us and those who will come already have an almost impossible mission. And the bad news (another one!) is that those who decide our future rejoice in our state of confusion. And do everything they can to prolong it.
The more busy and stressed we are with the little tragedies that keep us in our heads, the less we fight back, the less we participate, the less we hope to live the life we imagine. Engines slow down, so we abandon any fight requires clarity, tenacity and confidence.
The danger? To slide into cynicism and fierce individualism. The opportunity? To find that breath of fresh air meant to lift us, to show us that we are not alone, nor the only ones, to remind us that the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is our relationships with others; love in its broad, contemporary sense.
A sort of breath of fresh air is UNFINISHED LOVE STORIES itself – the editorial project that brought me back to the editorial arena and now feeds, with each story, the antidote to my cynicism. It forces me to change my gaze’s trajectory – from the inside to the outside, where I wonder what would we do if we were no longer afraid? How many times we would start over for love?
We may not admit it, but we are hungry to share our joys and sorrows and to immerse ourselves in others’; because relationships are neither math nor have a manual, no matter how much the TikTok psychotherapists try to teach us otherwise. We may get better with time, but the truth is that everyone is struggling, looking for understanding, healing and answers.
More often than we think, we find them in someone else’s story. In the story of the couple who struggled with infertility until they decided to start an adoption journey; in the devotion of the daughter who followed her mother up and down the mountains without asking „why” in the hardest moments, in the friendship that remains peanut butter & jelly-like, although navigating a geographical separation; in the marriage proposal witnessed by cats, near a stack of unwashed dishes.
Because they work with archetypes, stories help us put our role in perspective and understand the nuances of the world around us – because we empathize with the character, because his trials are familiar to us, because we wonder what we would have done in a similar situation.
Everyone can relate to a story and we believe that this project will bring out the best in us, as Timea Honț, my fellow editor at UNFINISHED LOVE STORIES, beautifully says about our editorial project that sits between narrative journalism and literary non-fiction:
“It will bring out surprised hearts, split, broken, bandaged, scarred. It will bring out hearts from the past, still beating in the present, hearts that wish they could have stayed hidden, but can’t anymore. Hearts that beat faster, or slower, or maybe just right when they finally find their place in this world.
I believe that everything we choose, everything we hurt and everything we conquer, everything we want to save, change, or transform in ourselves and others, it all comes down to the decision we unconsciously make countless times a day: What (or who) do we love more? Each big love kills a thousand other tiny loves that could have taught us something else, that could have fulfilled us in one way and destroyed us in another.
Our project works as a collective therapy. It offers a platform to process the loves that shape our society. A safe space to rediscover vulnerability as courage, to be honest, to face fear, to publish just one page from your journal, perhaps the most important one. It’s a collective diary that might make you addicted.”
As the world has become increasingly overwhelming, for many people, reading about things that matter on a personal level has become increasingly important. To see that there is also reason for optimism, that people are there for each other, that they nurture a sense of care in all the messiness that comes with our emotional baggage. Especially if we look at love beyond its controversial popularity in the romantic sphere. If we look at it from the sphere of things that enrich our lives, that focus the most important stories of people and restore their strength, life, motivation.
Every UNFINISHED love is a story that needs to be told and therefore pushes buttons we thought were frozen. But if we lean on them, we may find correct formulations for unsolved problems. These formulations are the stories we want to tell.
But we couldn’t do it without you. We know that it takes courage to share personal experiences. But how liberating it is to listen to someone’s story and realize that you are not alone. We would love for you to share with us your unique, deep and imperfect story, which explores the universe of contemporary relationships in your life. It can be a story with a happy ending or a broken heart, a story from marriage, dating, parenting or any other topic that could fall under the umbrella of modern love. Send us your story at editorial@unfinishedlove.
Cum trimiți povestea ta de iubire?
Trimite textul la editorial@unfinishedlove.
Asigură-te că povestea ta, scrisă în limba română, se încadrează într-una din cele doua formate:
De eseu: între 1500 si 2000 de cuvinte
De telegramă: 150 de cuvinte
Pune textul într-un Google Doc sau Word și pune-l de asemenea cu copy/paste în corpul mailului.
Povestea ta trebuie sa fie 100% reală. Nu folosi pseudonime și nu inventa personaje sau locuri.
Povestea ta trebuie să nu fi fost anterior publicată în nicio formă – print, online, pe blog sau pe canalele personale de social media.
Poveștile vor fi editate împreună cu autorii lor. Autorii ale căror texte vor fi publicate vor fi remunerați.
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