Letter to a Friend by Bella Mottazacks

Dear friend,

I know it feels like the world is against you right now. And maybe it is.

You were finally in the light at the end of the darkness. So happy just to be plagued somber by the tunnel’s darkness again.

This city hasn’t treated you kindly. You try your best to be kind whenever you can. But the people here are not like that. The people here seem to only care about themselves. That’s a trend with the rest of the world, I guess.

I see your efforts to be outgoing and meet people, despite the constraints of your social anxiety—introversion wrapped like a rope around your hands and throat, choking you, silencing your voice. Why do you quiver under the blah of blahmy friend?

Nobody seems to care about introverts. They see them as awkward and weird most of the time. I can almost see the judgement emanating off of others, like steam rising from a hot road after it rains.

Not only that, but introverts carry a target on their back. They make easy prey for an assortment of negative things. People take advantage of you. Consistently.

Maybe that’s your own fault for not standing up for yourself though. Like all the times as a kid you were made fun of for your thick hair—the unibrow,  the mustache, the hairy legs and arms. Or maybe the time your fake friends used you for every last drop of your essence and kindness. Abusing that. Or even the time he decided that your body was his and he could make decisions for it. I won’t say his name or what he did.

Or maybe it wasn’t your fault. And sometimes bad things happen to people who are undeserving of them.

With every trauma I can see the perpetrator taking the hammer and smashing it into your glass frame. I watch as small pieces, shards, of you are taken from them.

But the beautiful thing about you, my friend, is that you have the ability to rebuild yourself.

Time and time again you pick your broken glass shards up. You stain them into an array of vivid colors and assort them into a beautiful stained-glass panel.

You are art, my friend. I know sometimes you don’t see that, so I feel as if I need to remind you. You have taken your brokenness and transformed from it.

That’s not to say you’ll never experience trauma again, because life is full of ups and downs. Healing is not linear.

Life is not linear.

But, you know how to pick yourself up. And you know how to put yourself back together. And you do a pretty fucking good job at it too.

So I want you to know… that I am proud of you.

I am proud of you for overcoming all this shit.

I am proud of you for staying strong in the face of adversity.

I am proud of you for taking care of yourself.

And most importantly, I am proud of you for not giving up.

Love always,

You