“Moments,” Amy Gastright ‘21

question- what does human Eva Balistreri make of this life that I am, or at least I think I am, living? A labyrinth? But why? But why not? My suffering, I presume, does not come from anyone or anything else in this world, because how could it? My pain, my sorrow, my grief. My heart and soul and mind and body feel things that no one will ever be able to call their own. This suffering is mine. My fellow humans undergo the inevitable hell of pain that simply cannot be felt the same way by others. Like a snowflake, our true, untouched emotions hide only in the far corners of our souls. So, once again, let’s just say that the genius John Green was, by some spontaneous chance, right about it all - the labyrinth, suffering, and the entire meaning of life. Green’s intention with his beautiful ability to make the English language come alive has been something I have contemplated since the first time my innocent hands closed the spine of a paperback version of Green’s Looking For Alaska. The labyrinth, while making my head spin out of control with confusion, was something that drew me in like a magnetic field. I didn’t understand it, yet my soul was drawn to his words. John Green writes that “The only way out of this labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” Forgiveness. The Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines forgive as the action of “ceasing to feel resentment against an offender or one’s enemies.” And so this is when I realized that the only way out of this hellish labyrinth that Green has so easily navigated is to forgive. Forgive. It was as if the labyrinth wouldn’t let me go. I was trapped sitting in his oily hands. He was waiting for me to give him a kiss on the cheek. A goodbye. He was waiting for me to forgive. But forgive what? Myself? I contemplated this for a while. My brain was struggling to keep up with itself something I wasn’t sure was possible until it happened to me. I was confused- something that was not a rare occurrence for me, but it was different this time. It wasn’t my brain attempting to understand his words, it was my heart. I didn’t need to understand the labyrinth, I wanted to. And with this, the magnetic field grew even stronger. So let’s get back to assuming. Of course, still assuming that I am a human and I am alive, I’d like to also believe that I am not one prone to enemies. Actually, let me correct myself - I’d like to believe that one isn’t really aware of their true enemies until one of two things happens: the first being that the so-called, “enemy” is overcome, leaving one feeling not satisfied with themselves but more so empty inside. The second of the two being that the “enemy” ceases to exist. This second possibility, while it would leave one relieved, would introduce an entire realm of possibilities that modern day society knows as sorrow, which life has proven to be a tremendous enemy within itself. So what is the answer? Who, or what, is my very worst enemy? You see, my problem is not that I can’t seem to find my worst enemy. In fact, that wouldn’t be a problem at all. As I said earlier, I’d like to believe that I am not one prone to enemies. My problem, you see, is that I do have an enemy - the issue is that it is myself. My name is Eva Balistreri, I think I am a human, and I am my own worst enemy. In a sense we all are our own worst enemies. Because at the end of the day, we are the only ones who can feel our own emotions. However, this is why we, as so-called humans, must forgive ourselves. When we make a wrong turn in this maze of a life is the moment we allow ourselves to believe that we are alone in this great, big, scary labyrinth of suffering and laughing and living and all of the in between. We must pause, loosen the choking grip of the labyrinth’s leash, and forgive ourselves.

John Green once wrote, “If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” I am not a hurricane right now, and that is okay. Hell, I might not even pass as a mid-afternoon shower. I am not sufferingly beautiful and my words cannot bring people to tears. My life is not a mystery and my soul is not clean. But I am here, and whether I really trust what the world tells me or not, I’d like to believe that I am at least surviving. I am no hurricane, but as John Green once wrote, “We all matter - maybe less than a lot, but always more than some.” And so with that, I am not asking you, but I am telling you that I matter. Because I exist, I matter, and I know I have the ability to become a hurricane some day. And so I will leave you by saying that I forgive myself.

— Eva Balistreri ‘21