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Madi Steinbauer is a 2013 Bellwood-Antis graduate who is currently attending Penn State University. You can visit her blog here.

Living life with a big heart is one of the most beautiful and disastrous traits one could have.

And how convenient is it that I am one of those people?

I love too often, care too much, hate too little, and regret nothing at all.

Many people live life with a big heart. Although, not many people enter into the minds of those who struggle through the process of sometimes wishing that they didn’t.

People I love and loved, people I know and people I used to know, people on the street, and people in my home. Not all of them will ever understand the true difficulty of having a trait that can be nicknamed a “beautiful disaster.”

I couldn’t hate you, even if I wanted to.

I could sit there for hours thinking of the most horrible things someone has done to me and instead of hating them, I find myself having the smallest sliver of hope that there is goodness somewhere in their body. Thinking that maybe their soul forgot how to love one another. Maybe they were too hurt by someone in their life to care for one another. Maybe its a defense mechanism to protect their mind, body, and spirit.

I will never think that you are a bad person, even if I wanted to.

I will come up with some excuse or some memory I have of you that once made me laugh. I will tell myself that you are hurting from something or someone and you have lost yourself.

I will never say mean things about you and truthfully mean it, even if I wanted to.

I will get angry and spew words of hate, but I will always know in the back of my heart that they are words of anger. And that they mean nothing.

I will never look down upon you and think that I am better, even if I wanted to.

I will look at you and think that you have changed or become someone no one wants to know.. I will think so many things but I will never think that I am held to a higher standard and that I am better than you are. Because in my mind, we are equal.

I will never regret loving or befriending you, even if I wanted to.

I will wish and wish things were different, but I will never stop caring about you or regret caring about you even if that means I break my own heart while doing so.

I will never hate who I am because I have a big heart, even if I wanted to.

I will become angry with myself. I will wish I couldn’t care about a snarky remark. I will wish I didn’t love those who cannot find the heart to love me. I will wish that I could say mean things right back to you and mean it. But I can’t. Because out of the goodness of my soul I will always treat people with kindness, respect, love, and decency.

I will never treat you how you treated me, even if I wanted to.

I will think of things that I could say, but it will sit on my tongue until it dissolves into the air. I will imagine scenarios that you will realize you were hurtful by hearing the hurtful things I was saying back to you, but they will replay in my mind until the movie wheel breaks and I am left to imagine another one. I will speak about what I really think of you, but my heart will tell me that I am so wrong about those words that I wake up at 6AM with anxiety and can’t fall back asleep. I will never treat you how you treat me, because I believe that you are a good person and the knowledge that my gut has about that is so strong that it forces me to take a deep breath instead of scream in anger.

But I love who I am, even if I didn’t want to.

Because one day,  all of the friends in my life will start to realize who I am and stop taking advantage of the fact that I can’t say “no” because I want them to be happy. One day, I will find the love of my life who will treat me with respect and care and understand to not take advantage of the fact that I will never throw knives into their back just because they threw one in mine. One day, I’ll have a family of my own who has big hearts and I will say that they are beautiful and to not look it as a disaster like I have looked at mine. One day, I will become someone who is looked at with kindness and not looked at as weak.

One day.

But that day wont be today, or tomorrow, or maybe even a year from now.

And that’s okay.

The one thing that could come out of this right now, is that people will start to acknowledge how others make them feel.

And that’s when things can start to change.

But I love living my life with a big heart…no matter what anyone does to try and change that.

Because they will never change me, even if they wanted to.