JenTalksLoud

March 16, 2025

I grew up knowing my grandma, Judy, is half Puerto Rican, and I was raised by and around very proud Puerto Rican women (Judy will tell everyone she meets that she’s Puerto Rican). The foods we made on the most important holidays were Puerto Rican meals, fragments of heritage preserved through generations of women’s hands. My Spanish bisabuela, Lucy, learned traditional Puerto Rican meals to make sure her husband and children could be connected to their culture after moving to the US. 

I’m just now visiting and understanding this place in a new way, and I can say the people are the warmest, most congenial souls. I’ve never felt more at peace in a place I’d never been, and I have a new level of pride knowing my people are from here. I also don’t understand how anyone, let alone a speaker at a presidential campaign rally, could ever speak ill of this place.

We spent a few nights in Fajardo, and on our first full day, we took a catamaran tour to Culebra and Culebrita. Knowing I’d be in the ocean and on the beach, my spirit was at ease. It was lifted considerably after spending the day with friends, swimming in ancestral waters, feeling carefree for the first time in a long time.

On the hour-long boat ride to our first destination, I made a joke about my recent breakup which was met with laughter and the gentle question, “So how are you doing?” What followed was 20 minutes of me crying as I explained that while I was okay, I also had a lot of feelings — and proceeded to excavate those feelings on a boat with about 50 other tourists in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. 

There is something sacred about being around women you’ve never had to mask for, you’ve never had to hide how you really feel about something for fear of judgment or retaliation. I’ve spent many of these recent weeks cycling through the emotions of ending a romantic relationship, but at no point have I felt like my feelings weren’t valid. And more importantly: I’ve never felt alone.

During the planning for this trip, I made one request: to visit Ponce — where my bisabuelo Raymon Pagán was from. I didn’t expect everyone to make the two-hour drive with me, but on Wednesday, we loaded up early and drove down. We had a breakfast of bocadillos and pastelitos on the way. We saw the Castillo Serrallés and the Parque de Bombas and stopped helado de maiz con canela before heading back.

I’ll be forever grateful to have shared that experience with them. To connect my historical lives with my current one — to connect my blood family to my chosen one. It was unforgettable.

I’ll forever be in awe of these women —

The friends they are. The daughters and sisters they are. The partners they are. The mothers they are. The way they continue to show up; in the moment. The way we seamlessly travel with a shared responsibility and purpose. They’re always down to clown and participate in shenanigans. The way we can laugh at the silliest things. The way they know exactly what to say when you need to hear it the most.

I’ve done a lot of dumb shit, and I know I haven’t always been the easiest friend to have. But I must have done something right to have this group, and so many other women in my life. Women who have gone out of their way to make sure I feel complete after ending a relationship with a person I thought could be my own version of forever. As a single woman, and as I get older, I am exceedingly convinced that friendships with other women are the most important relationships we can nurture. I believe it is the women who love us who will pull us through the hardest of times.

As I was sitting on the beach in Luquillo, I got emotional about how lucky I felt to be having two really transformative experiences at once: reconnecting with my roots while being held by this circle of extraordinary women. This vacation, specifically with them, was perfectly timed, and grounded me in the way I needed.