When Your Heart is "Just Too Big"

It all started when I saw a disabled man struggling and heard nothing but mockery from people I loved.

At the age of nine years old, I was riding in a large van with cousins and few other family members to enjoy a Sunday lunch in another town. I didn't participate in any conversation, as I was the "quiet kid" who didn't speak up too often. Shyness was my main personality trait in my youth. I didn't want to say the wrong thing, as I've always hated confrontation, so I learned to just not speak at all.

As we drove, I noticed a man in a wheelchair, pushing himself down a country highway and struggling to force his chair over the small patch of gravel by the road. There was no sidewalk. I placed my hand on the glass of the car window sadly, wishing we could help him, when I heard my family members speak up.

"Oh, how disgusting is that? He probably did too many drugs. Now look at him."

"Mm-hmm, probably not even a tax payer. Just leeching off the system."

What? How did they know any of that? I didn't see anything that looked like drugs or bad things. I just saw the man having a hard time. Maybe I should ask why everyone thinks he's a bad man? He's just in a wheelchair. Are wheelchairs bad things?

No, I won't ask. They'll just tell me I don't understand. My heart is "just too big."

We drove back to my adopted grandmother's house, where I got to continue my joyful yet awkward Sunday by playing with my cousins. The subject of school came up as a discussion, and one of my family members snorted at how annoying history lessons were.

"I'm just saying, maybe ending slavery wasn't that good of an idea. I feel like we should all just be handed one for free at birth. Everyone needs one slave."

What? Why would we do that? Why would we need a slave? What made ending slavery a bad idea? We can do a whole lot of things for ourselves. It's not like we need anyone else to do anything for us if we can learn to do it for ourselves. Is he joking? Or is he serious? Everyone else is laughing. I don't feel like laughing. I feel like this is wrong.

Black people had every right to be freed. My teacher said so.

I'll just stay quiet. He'll think I'm crazy if I say I don't agree. I don't want them to think I'm a freak. I'm already adopted, I don't want to stand out more.

We headed home, where talks of my sister's upcoming birthday began and her insistence upon obtaining a full wardrobe akin to the style Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls had. Our mother kept telling her she couldn't have it. I decided to chime in with my own comment.

"Well, when I'm older, I want a tongue ring just like Scary Spice! What's wrong with trying to look like our favorite Spice Girls?"

My father immediately informed me, "You don't need to be trying to look like Scary Spice. She's not your color."

What did he mean by that? I like her leopard print clothes. I like her hair. I like her big boots and the way she sticks her tongue ring out. I like how bold, brave, and daring she is. I like singing her parts in their songs because I can kind of sound like her. I like pretending to be her when me and my sister pretend to be them in concerts. I like all that stuff. Why can't I try to be like someone I like?

I'll stay quiet. He probably just doesn't understand girls very well.

Luckily enough, my biological grandmother loved to support my interests and managed to obtain some dress-up clothes I could use to pretend to be my other favorite female idol, Aaliyah. When I got home with the goods, I rushed to my shared bedroom with my sister and closed the door; dressing myself in everything "Aaliyah" and dancing around like a happy, crazy little weirdo, I felt so free being exactly who I wanted to be. Within a few days, a package arrived in the mail, and it was Aaliyah's album. My biological aunt bought it for me in secret and had my grandmother send it to me.

"What singer is that?" my mother asked me as she peered at the cover.

"Someone I saw on TV, I said I liked her so I guess my aunt decided to just go ahead and get the CD." I clutched it to my chest and rushed upstairs back to my bedroom, just in case my father saw me idolizing another black woman. There was where I'd dress like Aaliyah, learn her dance moves from the video of Are You That Somebody, memorize the lyrics of all her songs on her album I just obtained, and feel happy as the kid I wanted to be. I wouldn't do this if my father was home, but my mother left me alone enough that I could get away with it when I was home with her.

I know almost all of my family doesn't like this kind of music. They talk about "thug" music and I don't know what that even means. I just like it! I don't want to be embarrassed of what I like but I don't want to hide it either. I'll just pretend the stuff I really like isn't my favorite, so no one gets mad. I don't like hurting feelings.

Another home-cooked dinner by my mother was made, and we sat at the table together as always. As my mother served our plates, my father was on a tangent.

"And all these gosh darned Mexicans or Hispanics or whatever coming into this country and stealing American jobs, I'm lucky to have the job I have because no Mexican can do what I do. I have to do actual hard work, girls." He narrowed his eyes at his daughters, and I dropped my head.

That's not really nice though, Dad. How can anyone steal a job? I thought you had to do a lot of stuff to get a job...but I don't know, maybe I'm just too young to get it. I don't want my Dad mad at me for asking questions. I just wish he was nicer about things like this. My best friend at school is Mexican. He must have forgotten, or maybe he hates my friend.

Maybe I'm too nice, just like everyone says. But everyone says things that make me feel uncomfortable.

At a later point, my sister and I had the opportunity to spend some time with our biological father when I was approximately twelve years old. She commented on a performance by Usher and made the mistake of remarking on his physical attractiveness.

My biological father simply replied, "Nope. Wrong color."

All out hell ensued. My sister shouted, threw things, and dared our father to speak further because her thorough disgust would only come out even more. He looked so enraged, I thought he might actually hit her. I walked outside to get away from the explosive argument.

The fighting is too much and too scary for me. All because our father doesn't like my sister being attracted to a black man. But my sister fought back...she didn't stay quiet and walk away like I just did. I don't know if I can get the strength to fight back like that but if she can do it, I probably can too, right?

No, probably not. I'm too nice, and I'm too scared to make our real Dad angry.

As I aged, these incidents were so commonplace I should have felt entirely natural in hearing words like these, but the discomfort never went away. Reflecting on these incidents, I realized I had spent the majority of my adolescent life in social shock: I didn't agree with anyone around me, and I never had the courage to say it.

At that point, the awkwardness of my heart disagreeing with everything I'd been raised listening to began turning to a need to explain, to try and turn people's hearts to compassion over learned hate. Surely I could make a difference if I just spoke up for a change.

I remember one time, I had a boyfriend grin at me and speak very plainly, "I love using the word n****r." I wasn't a shy kid anymore, though.

"I don't. It's ugly, and it hurts people."

"Well, you're just too nice. Everybody says that word. It's normal."

Whatever, buddy.

Another time, my friends took me to our friend's house to hang out in her tent in the back yard. She lived with her parents still, but only her mother was home and she loved having us visit. We got inside the tent, playing with flashlights, being goofy, having a great time, until we heard my friend's stepfather's car pull up.

My friend spoke in sheer terror, "Oh my god, he's going to freak out if he sees a black guy here."

We quickly formulated a plan and my friend went inside to distract the stepfather while I was sneaking my other friend back to my car, directing him to lay in the backseat until someone could sit beside him and block his view.

Once we gathered in the car and drove away, my friend apologized. Our other friend replied, "It's okay, I'm used to it."

It's NOT OKAY! We just SMUGGLED YOU OUT OF A TENT LIKE YOU WERE ILLEGAL because of RACISM! This isn't okay!

"It shouldn't be something you're used to, but we'll go somewhere else, where people aren't f***ing jerks. I'm sorry that happened. It's just...not right."

When I became a mother, I found the words in my over-sized heart coming out of my mouth more frequently than staying in my brain . My soon-to-be ex-husband was a severe racist (we won't get into the epic mistake that was), but I cared very little about that when I invited my two friends over to spend some time with me and my baby. My girl friend was Hispanic and a young mom like myself, while my male friend was African American.

My ex found out who my company was, arrived at my home, and pounded on my door screaming, "MY SON WILL NOT BE AROUND NO GOD DAMN N****R!"

"MY son will be around every single person I decide he can be around, now leave!" My voice shook with fear and strength as I defended my friend. I called the cops and had him arrested for violating my protective order on him, the cops barely acknowledging the racist aspect of the violation, while my friends thanked me for handling it.

"There's nothing to thank me for. He's an asshole and I'm sorry you two had to deal with that just now."

My girl friend nodded. "That was a little scary." Her face said it was a lot more terrifying than she wanted to say, and my heart shattered. I loved these friends. This wasn't fair.

The "awkwardness" of having an actual heart has followed me my entire life. I've done and said things to create love and happiness and heard on countless occasions all of these phrases, as if my love was problematic:

• You're too nice!
• You don't have to save everyone, you know.
• Your heart is just too big.
• Why help someone if they can't help you back?
• You say you "hate people" but you care way more than you let on.

Well, I do hate people with ugly hearts, so that statement is not inaccurate; and unfortunately, I grew up with a lot of ugliness around me.

Eventually, I gave birth to another child: a beautiful, biracial little girl. I hadn't seen my adopted family in a long time, so I sent a Christmas card with her photo and provided my contact information so we could catch up. I have not spoken to my adopted family since she was born. I'm guessing I shamed the family name by bringing a different color into their happy little white cloud. Later, when she was diagnosed as autistic, I breathed a sigh of relief that those ties were cut forever: the only thing that "family" loved to hate more than anyone who wasn't white were disabled people.

Even my birth mother and sister couldn't find it in them to defend my daughter against racism. For that, and several other reasons, I ceased to communicate with them. We still do not speak, and I do not have any regrets.

I remember talking to my biological grandma (fondly known as Nan) about my families, and how out of all of them, no one seemed to "get it." I just felt different for not agreeing with them. Was something wrong with me?

She patted my arm and smiled. "You're the black sheep, baby. I was always the black sheep too. We might as well be aliens because we are nothing like the rest of them, and that's FINE."

My entire adolescence is riddled with memories of racism, verbal abuse of the disabled and poverty-level humans, and judgment in every direction you can possibly imagine. My social shock was a constant state as I grew, because nothing I heard sat right in my heart.

But you know what? My heart is fine. My love and kindness isn't awkward. My humanity is not a flaw. The humans who have made me uncomfortable are the broken ones, and I can only hope that someday, they catch up to me. Love won in my heart despite everything I ever heard, and if that can happen, their hearts can change too. They just have to choose it.

I'm not awkward. You're awkward, you non-lovey weirdos.