Whatever I Want to Be

Dear Chicken Soup,

My name is Renee Tanner. I am fifteen years old and an interracial child. My father is black, and my mother is white. I do not consider myself either black or white. I won’t even say that I am mixed. I like to define myself as me, for skin color is really of little importance. It is part of the exterior, not the interior. I believe that what matters most is what’s inside your heart, not what color skin you have. However, I have not always felt this way.

From the age of six, I did what every kid did. I went to school and learned, came home, played and just had fun. But there was something inside me that was never quite right. I never felt complete. I felt different in a way. It didn’t really affect me until I was older. As time passed, it became harder and harder to just be me.

All through elementary school my best friends were white. The kids at my school seemed as if they did not know that I was both black and white. But once I got into seventh grade I realized that I was different because some of the black kids at my school started to make fun of me, I think because I wasn’t entirely black. Also, some of the white kids from the other elementary schools looked at me in a weird sort of way. I was an outcast to them. My best friends never knew how upset I was, because I couldn’t tell them. I knew they wouldn’t understand. One day I was crying hysterically, and I called a friend of mine. I told her that I didn’t fit in. That nobody understood me. And nobody would ever understand me. I said that I was different and that it was impossible for me to just be me. She asked me where I had come up with all of this. I told her that my mother was white and my father was black and I didn’t know what I was. Was I mixed? Was I black? Was I white? I didn’t know. She said to me, “Renee, you are Renee Elizabeth Tanner. That is who you are. You are everything and anything you want to be.” I didn’t believe her, but she kept trying to tell me that it didn’t matter what I looked like. However, it didn’t work, and I continued to believe that I was different.

I couldn’t talk to the black people at school, for I was not fully black, and I couldn’t talk to the white people because I was not fully white. It hurt inside to not know who I was, to not be able to fit into a perfect category. For almost a year I cried every night. I wrote poems and stories. I kept everything either inside or on paper. Never once did my friends know how much pain I was in. And some of them still don’t know.

One day after crying for hours, I picked up the book my mother had given to me for my birthday, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I began to read it, hoping that it would lift my spirits. Not even ten minutes into the book, I stopped crying. By the time I had finished, I felt something incredible. I felt a sense of belonging. I called my friend again and told her that I no longer felt so alone. Again she said, “Renee, you are whatever you want to be.” Finally it hit me.

After all those years of feeling different, I finally came to terms with who I am. My name is Renee Tanner. My parents are black and white. And I, well, I am both of them. I no longer care what color my skin is, or whether black or white people talk to me. The people who are my friends don’t care what I look like.

Sincerely,
Renee Tanner