Carli Pappas

Nothing is what it seems. People lie or tell partial truths. You base your life, your actions, your choices on a foundation, a code, a set of rules, of reasons. And then a shift is made and the foundation quakes. You start to stumble, unsure, not quite as steady, as confident as before. The trembling alleviates and you look down, realizing that there are cracks in your foundation. Nothing is as smooth, as clean cut as you thought it was.

I pride myself on being cool headed, grounded. I pride myself on being able to let go and adapt to change. I pride myself on being strong and fearless. I pride myself on being unattached, on being able to go where the wind blows me and where the road takes me. I’m living behind a mask.

This I believe, this I know as I chat with my best friends--with Dove chocolates, root beer, and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the center of our forever bond made triangle--if anything, I am too passionate and too sensitive.

This I believe, this I know as I shout out “Mom?” in a tearful, quivering, searching voice and collapse into her warm embrace, shedding not only tears but also my apathetic, indifferent, unattached facade: that I am not only so attached and unwilling to change, but I am also deeply, deeply afraid.

I am afraid of running out of time. I am afraid of taking things for granted and not fully appreciating the love I receive and I am afraid that I don’t fully return that love. I am afraid that I won’t get to do all of the things I want to do. I am afraid that I don’t feel enough. I am afraid of losing my individuality, my Carli-ness. I am afraid of missing out and not living. But most of all, I am afraid of moving from this moment, this moment of perfect content and happiness because I don’t see life getting any better than this.

That’s life, though: moments of happiness and sadness, events of significance and insignificance, periods of changes and shifts, and periods of stillness and stagnation.

One thing I will always believe and will always know: No one is as lucky as me. So I’ll fill in the cracks and start again.