SEATTLE _ Race Porter paid $3.99 for his first broken heart.
Actually, it was two hearts _ a two-pack of iron-on patches he purchased at Michaels craft store last May. He kept one heart intact and, using his mom's iron, attached it onto the left sleeve of a Costco-brand plain white T-shirt.
He took the other red patch and cut a jagged line through the middle of it _ his first broken heart _ and ironed that onto the left sleeve of another white T-shirt.
Depending on how he was feeling on any given morning, that was how he decided which shirt to wear. On the days he felt his depression begin to take hold, he would wear the broken-heart tee; when he woke up feeling better, he would wear the full-heart tee.
The shirts soon became a source of light and an unexpected social platform for Porter, the punter for the Washington Huskies football team. A turning point in his long-drawn battle with his mental health came during a study-abroad trip to Amsterdam with other UW athletes last summer.
"I wore the broken-heart shirt every single day there," he said, "and it probably smelled so bad by the end of the trip. But I didn't care. It was so easy how people would comment on it: 'What does your broken heart mean?' So I would tell them: 'I'm just not having a great day.' And saying that was so simple, but it meant so much to me.
"Sometimes all you need is a couple conversations with friends to feel better."
