Remember pen pals?

CW/TW: This post contains content and themes which may be triggering.

There are specific references to abuse, violence, war, and mental health.

Please take extra care while reading.

My late older cousin, with whom I lived for several years as a child, had a pen pal in France as part of his high school French studies, back in the 90s.?

He was kind enough to facilitate connecting me with his pen pal's younger sibling, and we wrote back and forth a handful of times as I tried to teach myself another language in third grade.

That way I could write out the truth.?

My then-abuser couldn't read French.

I vividly recall the pages of tissue-thin paper, the special lightweight envelope trimmed in iconic?shades of?red and blue.?

All the different stamps.

My daily life at that time was fraught: psychological and verbal abuse, physical assault, emotional neglect, violence.?

A few letters from a distant pen pal helped sustain?my mental health through pre-puberty.?I had a confidant, someone who cared!

It was a small thing but a big deal.

"Air Mail," I said aloud, thinking,?

Wow, this message traveled the globe for me.

It felt deeply personal and profound.

I don't remember the last handwritten letter I wrote or received.

Things have changed. It's a new world.

Two weeks ago, a young Palestinian artist whose work I shared in solidarity and support of a ceasefire?back in October, reached out via Instagram DM.?

She asked if I would set up a GoFundMe account on her behalf.?

I found myself feeling cautious, guarded, and defensive at first.

After all, many of the private messages I receive on social media?are bots or spam and I've been victimized by web trolls more than once.

Then I panicked and froze, feeling small and like there was nothing I could do.

There were details to consider, liabilities, risks.

However, something softened in me as I remembered her art: an anatomical human heart and brain sketched together as a singular organ, body and mind as one.?A beautiful, poignant?metaphor for humanity.?

Her name, Jana, scrawled in black ink?next to "Sept 2023," published just before the Israel–Hamas war?broke out.

If you have ever felt your most authentic, euphoric self when creating, you know that art has the power to heal, to save lives.

Writing did that for me, it still does.

When I was Jana's age, 14, my only sibling and I were trapped in?a foreign country (Canada) with limited resources and no way to attend school, work, or access healthcare.?

Displaced from our home.?

I wrote in my journals to stay alive then.

(That's a longer story for another time.)

Jana and I communicate almost every day.

She shares with me images from her diary, videos of her making food alongside her mother who's just a year older than I am.

They live - this sweet girl, her two parents, and her three siblings - in a tent in a sea of tents made?from canvas tarps and?giant wax-coated flour sacks.?

She is clinging on to any shred of positivity so she doesn't lose hope.?

She says cooking makes her happy.?We have that much in common.

She is kind, smart, and funny.?

Humble in a way only youth in her circumstances can be at this time.?

Technology is her lifeline.

"The Internet is not good here, I have to walk a long way to the street for a signal," Jana tells me. She and her brother walk for what must feel like (or is?)?miles in the scorching heat to wait for hours in a long line for water.

Jana's cousin, Hala, was studying robotics and had advanced to global competition-level before bombs decimated her school.

I think about the once-novel concept of?Air Mail. The lengths to which we must go to connect with each other, and how much it means to feel heard.

I remember what it felt like not knowing where we would go, where we'd live.

It was triggering to look through photos of her life to create a collage for the?GoFundMe page. I struggled to make the phone calls to confirm there was indeed a way to direct donations to her mother's bank in Gaza.

The global fundraising?platform does not partner with certain countries.

Palestine is one of them.?

There was a lot of follow-up communication, research, and information collecting to be done, to do things right.?

My brain hurt(s). My heart aches still.

I created an email template with her story and sent it to all the international relief organizations I could think of, plus a few others suggested by trusted resources.?To date, none have responded.

I took frequent breaks in the process, taking in?quick little hits of dopamine and saccharine salves to keep up my emotional strength.

(Baking competition shows, cat videos, episodes of Ugliest House in America)

All this to say, I am learning that:

No action is enough, nor is it too small.

Fear and grief are also universal feelings.

Hope is sometimes all we've got.

I don't know why Jana chose me to trust, but trust is literally everything to a child. Bearing witness to her plight feels like the least I can do.

Of course I have other commitments:?

Clients to serve, bills to pay, friends and chosen family to support, not to mention my own mental and physical health to manage.?

Right now these things all feel like luxuries.

And I know one thing for sure: children deserve better.?

They need more than food, water, and shelter.?

They need safe people to support them. They need to know they matter, that?they're cared for, that they can and?will thrive.

They also need permission and space to freely exist as themselves, to create and build a better future beyond what they inherit.

I choose not to have kids of my own, but I do care for them - I once?was one and continue to carry those core memories.

As an empath, I didn't really know what else to do except what felt like the right thing to do with the resources I have.

Which is to tell you this story and encourage you to do anything you can to support. Even your reading this helps.

So, if you've made it this far, thank you.

If after reading this?you feel inspired to take action, here's how to help two teens in turmoil right now:

• Donate directly to Jana and Hala
• Share this GoFundMe fundraiser?
• Register for my May 23 virtual event: Body Doubling + Silent Prom for Introverts (50% of proceeds to be split between Jana and Hala)