Butterfly

Karina Saakyan

by Karina Saakyan

Story

Butterflies are a creation of nature that in itself are more than just a symbolism of beauty, they are a reminder of the power of transformation, growth and that life is too short not to live it freely.

I once knew a girl, who reminded me of a butterfly, well when I first met her, she was just a caterpillar. She was exploring the world in her own way, and was more of an ugly duckling than a white swan growing up. At the time, there was no social media to influence or whisper the social standards for beauty, yet this did not stop her entourage to express themselves on how they felt about her looks and what she had her mind set to. You see, the girl was focused on her studying and on not letting her family down. She had values, she wanted to do right by and yet this meant spending many lonely nights in the four walls of a boarding school. Her bookworm lifestyle was rather lame to the eye of the peers who preferred to sneak out of the boarding school and spend the night drinking with older men. Our caterpillar came from a conservative family and such behavior was not acceptable, she had to focus on what mattered to her.

Her family has always encouraged her to be fierce and persevere. However, our caterpillar got hurt by her family too. The people that were the closest to her heart have once told her that they did not see her a neither beautiful nor smart, and so she made it her objective in life to prove them wrong. The trauma of this has shadowed her through years to come. I have seen her go through life challenge after challenge, proving that she is worthy and enough day after day. Yet a part of her will always think of herself as a caterpillar, an ugly duckling never enough. High school was not easy and that goes for anyone, yet the university was not much better. Each time our caterpillar had found strengths to finally accept and let go of the trauma, life would through in another lemon.

At university, she met a man, a friend of a friend really, whose first reaction when seeing her was you do not have better looking friends, this is all you got? That right there was a hit below the belt that our caterpillar took years to recover from. In fact, she had told me, she thought to never be able to recover from this. She told me that the only thing that got through her the years of social anxiety was the focus on success and making it into the real world. She let her hardworking nature define who she was. At this point, she was just drowning in her work and making success after success, milestone after milestone. Was it enough for her?

We never talked about vulnerable matters, too emotional or perhaps too intimate. Yet, I could see it her eyes full of hope and romance, and the tears that so effortlessly covered her fears. Her smile that covered the tears and her heart that was wide open to anyone despite numerous downfalls, she had space in her heart for those in need of kindness. That was the moment when I realized that my friend was a butterfly all along, she just did not see it. Like a butterfly that does not see her beautiful wings, my friend did not see her own beauty inside out.


© Karina Saakyan 2023-05-18

Genres
Novels & Stories, Self-help & Life support
Moods
Emotional, Hopeful, Inspiring
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