A Little Bit About Eva

By, Eva Karalazarides

To tell you the truth, this was not plan A. Plan A would be me overcoming my fears and joining my school's newspaper; writing about the latest win for the football team and how that "greatly" impacted the school. Finding my calling to journalism, in the middle of January, did not exactly favor the October 15th start date. So here I am, now, making my move.

I was an opinionated child. I would often find myself wiggling into adult conversations at the ripe age of five and often combating people's ideas or opinions. That's how I earned the name "Eva The Diva." My family often found it cute that I had so many "mature" opinions. A very core memory of mine is me crying because Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. I always had my side, my personal opinion, until I was split into two.

At seven years old I experienced my first heartbreak, the loss of my parent's love for one another. Now, at fifteen, I would've noticed the signs. Daddy sleeping on the couch doesn't exactly scream "I'm in a loving relationship." Then again my favorite hobby was coloring Barbies' hair with markers. To tell you the truth, I couldn't process it. The distractions came on quickly. Fifteen minutes after the dreaded conversation, I was at McDonalds stuffing my face with chicken nuggets. Then a week later in Disney World. It was hard for me to notice the sobbing man putting his life into trash bags, in front of me.

My mother dragged me to every insurance-covered therapist in a ten-mile radius. I don't exactly know how her sitting in the room would help me open up, but words had to be spoken. I always wanted to please her, so I would complain about my father's girlfriends. Being that they were usually fifteen years younger than her, she didn't want to exactly hear about their cool tattoos or how much I enjoyed their company.

My brother was there, going through it, as was I. He was three and just creating memory, when they decided to call it quits. We never speak of it though, I believe we both know how different our experiences are, and that sharing them wouldn’t benefit either of us. We’re like most brother - sister relationships; he annoys me and I threaten to call my father, very healthy, I know. I love him and sometimes he makes me giggle, with his stupidities, but that’s mostly it. We never got deep, but who would get emotional when talking to a kid who believes that Bon Jovi is something to “mosh pit” to.

I’ve been a dog lover since my hand could grasp that leash. I grew up with a Cavalier, Layla. As per my mothers words, “she was a saint.” I remember figuring out she was no longer with us, I was heartbroken to say the least. As if that year, with my parents divorce, wasn’t enough, my dog had to go too. I remember showing up to second grade that day, crying once i set my backpack down. Fast forward eight years later, my parents followed through with my begging, and now I raise a six pound yorkie in my free time. I named him Louis because he has the colors of Louis Vuitton. To not sound stuck up, I usually tell people I named him after Louis Tomlinson, from One Direction. Some may see him as a dog, but he’s so much more. He’s my son, a paper shredder, and a little cuddle muffin, but not too much because again he weighs less than my hand. To say I take my role as a mother heavy is an understatement. Every week, I meal prep him food, all boiled and finely chopped. He as well gets his teeth brushed every other day. In a way seeing Layla go made me want to be the best dog - mom possible. I didn’t want to see a dog’s lifeless body in my kitchen again.

I would say my favorite hobby is reading, but not just reading, it’s reading at ten pm with recently washed hair, in my bed. Something about having that free time, late at night, makes me feel liberated. Sadly more times than I’d like, I’m memorizing chemistry formulas or doing English homework I put off because my hand “hurt.” My father bought me a Kindle for Christmas. The fact that I even owned a Kindle made me feel like I was an academic weapon, yet my English grade was an eighty - five. So far I have made it through twenty-eight percent of The Kitchen God’s Wife and my oh my did I enjoy every page. It’s basically following the story of this woman who is Chinese American and her relationship with her mother. I always wanted to be that person who could finish five books in a month, but tedious homework does get in the way of that. I first fell in the trap of It Ends With Us. The amount of times I had claimed that it was the “best piece of literature”, is truly upsetting. Then again I do have to thank it; it opened up my heart to words on paper.

This is me. It’s ok if your not totally a fan of her, most of the time, I’m not either. I hope you use this to help understand my posts and my opinions better, so you won’t be confused if I ramble on for four hundred words about how much I cannot stand certain dog food companies.

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