Today I Cried.
I took my son to the park.
Hopeful for children to play with.
Crowded and small.
The outside feeling hit me like it has for most my life.
I stood out.
Black long hair.
Glasses.
Alone.
The surrounding parents all white skinned.
I knew no one.
I told myself, “No one belongs. They are just trying to seem like they do.”
We walk around.
Passing a birthday party for kids.
A man shouts (not to me to his friends) “Let me tell those b*#ties.”
I have no reference for the shout.
My Son walks in front of a mom and older son.
I get a snear.
I walk away and my eyes fill with water.
I feel only the minutia my parents had felt coming to a place where they did not look like others.
I feel for my children who will feel the same way I felt.
They will know the feeling well.
There is nothing I can do to shield them from it and nor do I want to.
It is a part of who they are now, in this place.
They may be the perpetrators and receivers.
I want to let them know,
No one can make you feel like you do not belong
But yourself.