Dear You,
I never expected to be the kid with the target on their back. I knew that being the new kid in the beginning of the new semester would come with the possibility of being targeted for bullying, but it didn't happen. At least not as soon as I thought it would. I managed to make it a record of two months without coming into contact with bullying. I had made tons of great friends, I loved all of my classes, and I loved going to school.
At one point in time, I tried to be your friend. We had two classes together and we sat at the same lunch table—kind of. We never really had a full conversation, only small ones here and there. The kind that never really surpassed "Hey." My point is, we weren't exactly friends, but there was no reason that we wouldn't be acquaintances.
Which is the reason why I was so shocked the day you started to call me names. It came out of nowhere. I remember being so shocked when I first heard what you said. I ransacked my brain, trying to remember if I had done anything that past week that might have upset you or made you mad at me. But I had done nothing. And yet you still continued to call me names, nitpick my clothes and my hair and tease me for my "west coast" accent. Calling me names in the middle of class, bringing the attention onto the both of us in the middle of a lesson. I dreaded going to school and even dreaded going to the classes I had with you, even though they were some of my favorite subjects.
They are names I still hear even to this day. It's been eight years since I've last talked to you and seen you. But it's been only weeks since I've last heard the names you'd call me, in my head. The memories from that year haunted me, even after I moved away that summer. They haunted me throughout high school. It was like the saying "I'm rubber and you're glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" had completely twisted itself to "You're a glob of superglue and everything I say sticks to you forever."
But not even superglue is invincible and anything stuck to it isn't stuck forever...not if you find the right solution. For years, I thought my "solution" to erasing your words from my mind was to just ignore them and push them further towards the back of it. But recently, I've realized that this was not the case.
I'm not writing this to say that I forgive you. I'm not writing this to make myself feel better. And I'm definitely not writing this to make you feel bad about what you did, though I question if you ever regret how you acted or if you even remember my name.
I'm writing this letter to let you know that those names you called me all of those years ago, the ones that stuck in my mind for years—those names are no longer affecting me anymore. In fact, they're completely erased from my mind. And because of you, I've learned not to let what anybody else says about me affect the way that I see and treat myself.
You no longer have any power over me.
Sincerely,
You Can't Hurt Me Anymore
