Broken Hearts

June 9, 1996 // Silver Spring, MD

I didn’t like my life in 1996. I was experiencing a horrible breakup with a guy I was engaged to. The split threw me into the well of depression. My heart shattered into millions of pieces. I didn’t trust anyone after that moment, including myself. I also started to dislike the place where I was working. I liked my job but not the way some of people treated me except for Tina. Tina was a beautiful and everything perfect. She had the eyes and skin from her Japanese mom and the height and chiseled jaw line of her White dad. It was the first time in my life where I was curious about the life of a biracial person and I wondered what her lived experience was like.

Tina and I became very close friends. She knew everything I was going through and watched me fall into the pit of sickness—emotionally and physically. She was always there to try and cheer me up. On day she presented me with a journal. She said I should write what I felt. I thought the idea was ridiculous. I need help! Not a writing assignment!, I said to myself. I remember saying something to her like, “I’m not a writer.” or “I hate writing.” However, I think what I really meant was that I was afraid and resistant to the healing process. But, I graciously accepted the book and placed it on my shelf.

Little did I know that in West Virginia, 266 miles away, on the same day a man, Sam, who’d I’d later find out was my birth father was also suffering from a broken heart. However, his pain came from the loss of me, my birth mother, and the family he’d dreamt about having when he was a kid. Unlike me, he was desperately waiting for his heart to heal. So he wrote an emotional letter to, Jeannie, my birth mother with the hopes he would find some relief from his suffering heart.

June 9, 1996 // Lewisburg, WV

Sam wanted Jeanne to talk to him even if it meant she was calling to say, “Get the fuck out of my life, man!” and I just wanted my ex-fiance to leave me the fuck alone.

Never in my life did I ever imagine that in 2018 I’d finally pick up the diary Tina gave me and write about the moment I found out I have “original” birth parents.

Thanks Tina. 💛