my tender heart.

There is something you should know about me. I am extremely tender-hearted. And I mean like crying at Splenda commercials tender-hearted. You know the one where children are baking with what appears to be their grandma? I can't even handle myself when I see it. As I like to say--get a freaking grip.

I always knew I was sensitive (or over-sensitive, according to so many people in my life), but this was the moment I realized that my tender-heartedness was something to celebrate. I was standing at a soup kitchen holding a massive bowl of salt and pepper packets when I lost it. And I mean completely and utterly lost it and started crying my eyes out in public, in a room full of strangers at that! (Don't even worry, Ponyboy, you're not alone!) I attribute the cause of this breakdown to one specific man. We didn't speak a word to one another; he didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He was just an average man with the look of total exhaustion behind his eyes. I looked into those tired eyes and I cried.

Here is what it comes down to: I have seen my own father's eyes look that exhausted. I have looked into my dad's eyes and known that he gives every ounce of his strength for his family because he loves us and that love drives him. He is such a good dad. Right down to his core, he just wants to do what is right and what is good. The difference is that my dad's stresses are not about survival. We never had to worry about our basic needs. Dad always took care of those needs and much, much more.

Even if it wasn't true for that particular man, there are people working to the point of utter exhaustion out of untiring love for their families who, regardless of these efforts, cannot provide for all their basic needs. Standing there, crying into a bowl of salt and pepper packets, I wondered why these stresses of literal survival weren't my stresses. They easily could have been, but I was born into privilege. I asked myself: why me?

I am tender-hearted. That tender heart breaks for human beings because, in the end, your flesh is no different than my flesh, your bone no different than my bone, your blood no different than my blood. We feel pain the same way, we show show joy through the same smiles and the same laughter. We are human and that connects each and every tender heart.