She once learned that hearts are supposed to be as big as your hand when you make a fist. Or so they said. It was a wonderful way to explain away the fact that hearts are custom-made for each person. Well, almost.

The first time she heard that a heart was too big for the home it had in the chest, she was perplexed. She remembered asking her mother silly questions that she hoped explained what her curiosity was centered upon, encompassing correctly what she wanted to know.

“Mummy, I thought having a heart is a good thing?”

“Yes, my darling.”

“So a big one is a good thing, right?”

“Well- it's good, as long as it fits. It has a space in the chest, and when…” 

She had zoned out, but she understood, conceptually. Sometimes the hearts needed a little more to work. 

That was a lesson on hearts, and she carried it around with her as she moved through life, even as she forgot that hearts were organs, and not a metaphorical cabinet where you fold in all of your love. 

The next time she heard the words “heart’s too big”, it was being said to her by a friend, someone she adored. And he said, “Your heart's too big for your chest. One day you're going to burst.” 

Till now, she doesn't know what about it made her think about her actual organ, and not her filing cabinet, but she looked between both of them persistently until they became one and the same. And in that moment, looking back now, she might even remember wanting to burst. 

Sometimes it makes her think back to the conversation she had with her mother, and how her mother had explained to her what it meant for a heart to be too big to fit. And she asked herself later at night if it was possible to run out of space to put love when love was not something she could hold. It was alike to air, alike to nothing. She could not hold love. She could not taste it, down it, chew on it. 

And besides, even if love had a measure, would she throw out some love in favor of another? Would she choose not to love the clouds as much just so she could have space to love the trees? 

Or maybe stop loving the colors white and blue for space to love green, and brown?

The concept of having so much love that it made her heart too big perplexed her, and in fact, she remembered asking a stranger she met on a walk if it was possible to love too many things. 

“Impossible,” the stranger had said, walking with her. 

“Impossible?” she asked, unsure. She could remember how she had been seated on the side of the road, pretty near the building the lady had just come out of. She remembers feeling like she had just been untied from a string when the woman echoed it with more conviction. “Impossible. There is no such thing as too much love. We all need love. Love makes the world go wrong. Why, I think there isn't even enough love!” 

She had thanked the woman and decided that it was time to go, bid her goodbyes and disappeared into the road, her body coming alive with the sensation.  

On her way home, she decided she loved how the woman who sold pepper smiled; the toothy grin made her feel warmth. And she decided that she really, really loved how the little girl with the close-shaven head looked when she smiled at her mother, every time she got a compliment. 

She decided that she loved how her neighbor crossed the street, as she walked past him and his screeching run. There was something so alive about it, so vivid. Luminous.

She decided she loved everything, and well, the things she didn't? Well, they deserved a chance. 

It is years later, and now she has a child of her own, and a lover whose fingers linger in her skin, and her hair, and on the things that matter to her. 

She can see how free her daughter is, and how cheekily she goes after the things she wants. Her daughter claps with glee when she sees a color, a face, and a pen. Her baby swells with joy when she sees anything and everything, and her hands are like announcement bells, saying, See me. I am here. I am full. This is glee. This is pleasant. 

She feels like a revolutionary, an innovator, as she watches her baby experience love and relearns it with her. It is hard some days, and her chest sometimes needs some time to fit in with the love she has for her life. 

So she walks. She cries. She journals, and she blows pretend farts on her baby's belly. She sings, and she expands to fit all the love and all the joy. She tells her daughter about the things she loves, and her partner captures it and holds her as she sways to the slow sounds of the city moving around. 

When the love is too much and threatens to swallow her, she allows it, and she holds her baby up to the mirror as she emphasizes, hoping it is growing in her memory like a snowball, amplifying with each movement.

“I love you. I love your mama. I love myself. You should love yourself, too. Love as many things as you can. There will never be a thing as caring too much, okay? There will never be a thing such as too much love. It will never be too much for anyone or anything that matters.” 

Her daughter babbles back in incoherence, and she loves that too. She is so unbelievably full of love, bursting at the seams. 

She can't help it though, can she? It's her heart. It's too big.