Born into a family with huge hearts and sympathetic spirits, it is my responsibility to carry on our family’s thriving traits. Having a name that few can pronounce and no one else has, I’ve been independently living my best life since birth. My name is not just what I’m called, yet who I am. My name possesses great pride and positively not only in my life, but in others as well.
Being named after my grandma, and my grandma’s grandma, my name possesses great pride and positivity throughout my family's generations. A name that holds much more meaning than eleven letters sporadically placed together. A name that is deeply important to who I am and who I will become. Throughout my life, from birth till death, I am who I’m referred as those (not so simple) eleven letters.
     Your name: what you are called; yet, not what you get to decide. Labeled. Identified. Characterized. Your life, determined by the choice of your parents. Myself, lucky enough to incorporate two different names, as eleven letters simply is too tough to tolerate at times. To teachers, coaches, and friends, my name is Dina. Only four letters. Easier to say, yet not easier to scream as I do something wrong. As my parents bring out my full name, I know to run as the words that are about to emerge from their enormous, exasperated mouths will never be forgotten. The scream of my name burns my ears as a tornado siren alerts a town. All is in panic.
     As the days and nights continue to fade and the moments you desperately cling onto for you wish to never forget; they slowly dissipate into thin air. As a balloon at a children's birthday party. One moment, respected and raging with affection, the next, into thin air; as if ‘you’ never existed. My name described exactly. My so called friends, screeching and saying my name in awe, until that awe turns to criticism, questioning my self confidence in concern. Hearing my name in others mouths, knowing it’s me, there is no other Dina.
     Both a blessing and a curse, to be named the unknown. Others simply don’t and won’t understand what it’s like; yet, it’s been this way for all my life. By being able to easily be identified in crowds, to having my stomach twist and tango inside me when I’m called up to do a presentation. No one can save me in that moment, for it is I, Dina. Others wish and pray to find their names on keychains or perhaps a miniature license plate, but I sit here and chuckle for I know it’s impossible. Maybe in Greece one day I’ll stumble into a little kiosk in the middle of the busy town of Thessaloniki, but until then, I shall continue living without a pen flashing my name.
     Those eleven letters put together to form not only a name, but an identity. A name in which I am labeled as. Identified as. Characterized as. A name in which a few can pronounce and no one else has. Some make jokes and others truly appreciate the true exquisiteness of my name. Konstantina Marlis, it’s who I am and who I’ve learned to love.