Dear Friend (Stephen Chbosky),
“I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand...” I’ve always been known as the girl who is impossible to understand. I walk the halls of familiar faces that seem to see me as the stranger. I mean, I don’t try to be strange. In fact, I do everything I can to not make a spectacle of myself and make sure that I don’t give people a reason to not like me even more than they already do.  I’m writing to you because “I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands.” Just like Charlie, I am both happy and sad. I have good days and I have bad days. Every now and then I do get bad. I break down. I seem to have no one when I do get depressed and sad, although I get told otherwise by many people that call me their friend, but only when it’s convenient.
I am currently in my freshman year in the second marking period. In my English class we are reading Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I had read this novel on my own last year. Honestly, I don’t think I could relate any more than I already do to Charlie. We are both captivated in our love for books and sanctity of our solitude. Maturing into high school, I lost many friends. Simply because those people didn’t want me and my depressing background bringing them down on their social scale. I understand, I guess. I mean, you wouldn’t want to hang around someone who is always sad and does nothing but bring you down. Would you? I am a shy person, so very seldom do I pursue friends. If someone wants to be my friend, they must take the initiative and show me that they will not just leave me in the end, and that they will accept my quirks and phobias. That’s what real friends do, right?
It is the middle of November and I have already experienced a break down. I am a very fragile person who comes with baggage. Baggage that just breaks a heart to think about. Lately, I keep myself quiet even more than usual, because I just cannot handle being belittled anymore. I see people all around my school ridiculing other students for their likes and dislikes, things they do or don’t do. I also see the aftermath of their words on the victims and I see as they lower their head in humiliation and I see the tears come from their eyes. Most importantly, I see their enormous heart being ripped apart, piece by piece. I am in their shoes, and they are in mine. These are the people I need to make a part of my life, so that I know that they have at least one person as an encourager to them and a friend that will not judge them for their past, present, or plans for the future. This side of me shows how I am like Patrick and Sam. I don’t know what I would do if I knew someone was hurting as much as I was and I did nothing about it, and they ended up making the absolute worst and permanent decision anyone can make. It’s a scary thing, but it is reality. Suicide.
Recently, I have become closer with a friend. He accepts me for who I am, and accepts all my flaws. He understands that I am both happy and sad, and that I have bad days. In a way, it's sort of like the relationship between Sam and Charlie. I love this person as a friend, but also much more than that. The difference between my relationship with this person and the relationship between Charlie and Sam is that I already know his feelings for me. Charlie was reluctant to tell her how he felt because he simply didn't think that that was what she wanted. He was looking after her happiness over his own. That is just how I am. I go to the ends of the earth to make sure everyone around is the happiest they could ever be, even if it costs my own happiness.
Friends do have falling outs, though. There was a short time period in which me and him did not speak, just like what happened to Charlie with Mary-Elizabeth, Sam and Patrick. We got into a dispute about something that was stupid and I felt so awful in the time period in which we did not speak. It was weeks later that he got ahold of me and told me that he was sorry and I told him that I was sorry too and we basically made up and now we are as if we never argued in the first place. He's a person in my life that can relate to me with my weirdness and he accepts me. He has shown me that I don't have to accept the love that I think I deserve.
It's nuts how this novel really hit home for me. I mean, anyone can say that they felt the same exact way as the main character, but for me it is much more than that. Before reading this, I couldn't relate to anything with the way I feel. I guess I really did not understand that there is someone else in this massive world who is facing the same trials as me and that I am never alone. I also learned that no matter what people say or do to try to bring me down, I am a strong young woman who has great things planned ahead of me. I am different. I accept that I am. And in this moment, I have found the perks of being a wallflower.

Sincerely,
Julie