I met my best friend, Haley, when we were about to be juniors in high school when we were both playing for a summer lacrosse league team. She has long blonde hair, tan skin, blue eyes, and a loud outgoing charismatic personality, so naturally I was jealous. It didn’t help me that she was really good at lacrosse either, so for a while, I didn’t like her mainly because I wanted to be her.
Now being our junior year, we have been suitemates, teammates, and now roommates we have become best friends and she’s someone that I can’t picture my life without.
The main thing about my best friend that inspires me the most is how confident she is. She doesn’t let a lot bother her. She doesn’t care what people say and she lets most things roll off her back and I saw that in full force the other day and it made me appreciate my best friend more than I knew I even could.
Haley has vitiligo. It’s a skin condition where certain cells in our body attack the melanin in your body leaving patches of skin without color. Recently someone had made fun of her for it and she was upset, but just seemed annoyed, she didn’t cry, lash out, or act how I would in that situation, she simply moved on.
Hearing that someone had made a comment about her skin made my skin crawl and I wanted to find that person and give them a piece of my mind, but for her it was something that annoyed her and she moved on. I want to be like that.
I feel like everyone should strive to be like Haley. Be confident in yourself and know that whoever has the lack of intelligence and humanity to make fun of you for the way you look is not worth more than five minutes of anger because they are the ones at fault and karma will find them.
When I look at Haley I don’t see her skin. I see my insanely intelligent and wildly witty best friend she is so much more than her skin. Why do people still feel the need to be so disrespectful towards the way people look and things that people can’t change when people are not determined by the way they look?
So, my moral of the story is never EVER judge someone for the way they look or for something they can’t change, that immature and you need prayers. Also, if you have ever been made fun of for the way you look, remember that your beauty is from within and you were made with intention and purpose.
Don’t ever let someone determine your worth based on their worthless comments.
