An Open Letter to my Former Bully

Dear K,

Today, the fantasies of my thirteen-year-old self became a reality seven years in the making. As I checked Facebook while walking home from class through the crowded streets of Astor Place, a message notification with your name popped up onto my screen. Intrigued, I clicked to see that you sent me a heartfelt message, apologizing for bullying me during our pre-teen years. Id like to thank you. Not simply for your apology, but for all the valuable lessons youve taught me throughout our grammar-school encounters.

Thank you for befriending me simply to learn and exploit my darkest secrets. To this day, I still struggle with trust issues, constantly and irrationally fearing my friends sudden abandonment for reasons outside of my control. While Ive developed coping mechanisms to help calm my thoughts, some days, I cant help but question if my friendships are genuine.

Thank you for making fun of my writing. Receiving critique on my work is one of the most terrifying moments Ive experienced as a poet and essayist, yet I ease my nerves knowing that whatever comments I receive will never be as hurtful as your laughter.

Thank you for truly showing me the importance of using a persons gender pronouns. After constantly referring to me as an it, blatantly invalidating my femininity during my most formative years, I cant help but smile a bit whenever someone properly identifies me as she or her. For this reason, and also because I value respecting others, I often make sure to ask for ones pronouns upon introduction.

Thank you for teaching me to cope with the inevitable objectification that comes with being a woman. Although at one point, I found your jokes comparing my breasts to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny (all being nonexistent) quite funny, over time, it sparked a great insecurity in my body. For many years, I would hide under baggy clothing to avoid the same ridicule I received from you and your comrades, just recently learning to embrace my form as it is.

But most of all, thank you for driving me to pursue my dreams. After I moved away from our hometown before starting high school, I was emotionally vacant and severely depressed. Yet slowly, with the help of my pen and paper, and my willpower, I overcame my physical and emotional trauma, intent on proving those who thought Id amount to nothing wrong. Upon entering high school, I worked as hard as I possibly could, spending hours studying for the ACT and my AP exams, joining as many clubs and activities as I was able to fit in my schedule and even acting as the student leader of my schools broadcasting class so that one day, just maybe, I could study Journalism at New York University. I can genuinely say if it werent for the way you and your friends terrorized me, I would not be here, sitting on my windowsill, writing this letter and gazing out my window over the East Village.

But consider yourself lucky. If I hadnt been raised to believe that success was truly the best revenge, I just may have lived my long-time daydream of suicide, permanently escaping the psychological war I fought on a daily basis. But despite my suicidal thoughts and desperation for change, I refused to give you that satisfaction, for I knew that one day, if I fought hard enough, I would make it. And I did.

I hope that someday if you have children, you teach them the importance of kindness and compassion, telling them the story of the crazy ginger girl you bullied to the brink of suicide, who used her pain as fuel to achieve her goals. Hopefully, they will think twice before tearing someone down.

Sincerely,

Carly