Dear Stranger,

Today you walked passed me at the local mall. It was a cloudy, overcast afternoon and you were walking with a friend. I was walking alone. We were headed in two completely different directions. You stopped your conversation with your friend to tell me I looked pretty.

What was a small gesture of kindness, changed my entire outlook on my day. Which then changed the course of my future.

Now I know this sounds silly and a bit of a reach, but stranger, your kindness startled me.

Let me explain…

I woke up this morning, late to get to my classes. An anxiety-provoked teenager with insomnia and a head full of thoughts… of course, I woke up late. I rushed out the door barely attempting to wipe the smudged mascara beneath my eyelids and threw on my typical black hoodie and my dirty Converses. Of course, I hadn’t done laundry in over a week! I was stressed, can’t you see!?

I couldn’t make it to my class on time because my car needed gas, and by the time I got gas I was already 30 minutes late– and the class was ending within 15 minutes anyway… there was no point. So I picked up a bacon, egg, and cheese from the local deli (they make delicious ones by the way), and headed to the local mall.

On my drive over, I got honked at by two separate cars, my pockets were $30 shorter (thanks to the gas… and the bacon, egg, and cheese), and I didn’t get paid for another week at my crappy part-time job. (No one actually likes bi-weekly pay, do they?)

When I arrived at the mall, my phone had over 20 missed calls from my “boyfriend” (can I even call him my boyfriend if it was a toxic partnership?) As I declined and deleted each and every one of them, I took a hit of my vape (I know, I know), and looked in my rearview mirror… I looked like CRAP *pardon my language*.

My hair was messy and sticking out everywhere, my makeup was half off of my face, AND I looked like I cried myself to sleep… which at the time was probably accurate.

I decided to smooth my hair and get out of my car. For some reason, the mall was my comfort space. I loved to people-watch as my peers were in classes and I could be alone from the stress of senior year. As I walked inside the mall, I must’ve only sat down in the food court for 10 minutes, that is, until you approached me.

You stopped the conversation with your friend and walked over to me to tell me I looked so pretty. My initial reaction was to laugh and blow it off saying I definitely did not, but thanked you anyway. You hesitated a second before telling me you were serious and I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. You proceeded to walk away and leave me sitting there; a sad smile planted on my face as I thought about the interaction that just occurred.

I pulled out my phone and flipped the camera on selfie mode. I definitely looked poor in my opinion, but then I realized that was just it– my opinion… The realization settled in when I continued to look at my features; my eyes and how brown they were, my nose and how tiny little freckles scattered over it, my hair and how long it was getting, and my mouth that was chapped but told the best of stories. None of it really looked ~bad. It was more a figment of my imagination, a perception that I drilled into my own brain, a repetitive intrusive thought that continuously filled my head day in and day out thanks to the constantly amplified beauty standards.

But that didn’t matter to you. Because to you, I looked “beautiful.”
To you, a stranger, I looked beautiful.

I don’t want to tell you the insane amount of thoughts I’ve felt about myself in the past, because I’m sure many people day in and day out can relate. What I will tell you though, is that from that day on, I started complimenting at least one person every single time I went out in public.

Because of you, stranger, I started to think of myself as beautiful. If not how I looked that day, then how my brain and how my soul worked inside. I started to value myself differently after that. I started to treat people differently. If a stranger could make me feel important on a day when I completely hated myself, I wanted to be able to do the same for others.

Stranger, you may not know this, but you started the ripple effect.
And I don’t plan on stopping it any time soon.
So for that, I say thank you for making me feel beautiful, and for all of the other people who felt that same feeling as I did that day.

I will forever continue to create these ripples.

Sincerely,
Nicole Kisslinger