To Whom This May Concern:

You look at a stranger walking down the street and that’s all you witness.
You don’t suddenly recall the individual’s blood, sweat, and tears.
You don’t experience their highest highs and their lowest lows.
You don’t know their name or how burnt they prefer their toast.
You merely see an Instagram boomerang of them (probably the third one they snapped was the charm or should I say “post-worthy”) —
smiling, holding an iced coffee, in the most aesthetically-pleasing location, facing the direction with the best possible lighting.

Sometimes I look at her and wonder how she managed to do it. How she fought off all of the demons in the morning and was able to rise from her sheets, put together an outfit, and walk out a door that creeks as it opens and closes.

Sometimes I wonder how she strolls around the sidewalks with her head held up and her wedges clamping along the concrete without a single wobble.
Most might perceive her as simply on her way to class. Do they know she is embarking on a journey of self-discovery, of purpose? Weighted down with the heavy shackles of self-doubt?

I often wonder: how does she overcome the ball and chain weight? How does she catch herself since her cuffed hands can not brace for the impact of a fall? How does she manage to bask in the sunlight that sneaks in through a tiny window? She is trapped within a cell, brick-by-brick, held together by desolation and despondency, but refuses to stand in any corner that’s blanketed by shadow.

A prisoner of a mental war who refuses to be imprisoned.

Is confinement really punishment if one is okay with being alone with herself?

Is being with solely herself the same as being alone?

Is being alone with herself quiet and lonely if she has a mind that is always talking? Her mind must hold a conversation well; it speaks with poetic fascination rather than with bleakness about the weather.

Here I am, intrigued by her ability to turn her saturation up by enhancing her vibrant nature rather than dimming her grandeur. She finds ambition in the smallest of crevices and chooses to appreciate the scars on her skin. They say happiness is not completely a choice. I mean some of us have had the honor of being diagnosed with a sad face and as a result, have been provided pills labeled with a happy face…or is that actually just “20 mg” inscribed?

But here she is, choosing to acknowledge what she has, rather than what she doesn’t. She recognizes that she might have a serotonin imbalance, a trauma or two, an imperfect life, but decides to focus on the fact that she was gifted with empathy, intelligence, and a voice that allows her to free her inner ideas. She appreciates the shoulders that her classmate in 5th grade called “bony”…or was it “broad”? To her, that does not matter. For her shoulder has become the ideal place for her loved ones to cry on. They hold a greater purpose.

So there’s this stranger walking down the street. Who is she? What has she seen? What has she felt? What has she learned?What has she lost? Where is she going? How will she get there? Why hasn’t she turned back yet?

To the reader that this letter concerns:

how can the rest of us humans be more like her?