OPINION: Eros’s quiver holds piercing influence

Marissa Contreras
Managing Editor
Published Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024

According to Greek mythology, it is said that the god Hephaestus allowed for two beings to become one after the god Zeus separated them.

This became evident on the Friday of the first week of school. Where exactly? The Kinesiology Convocation Building Green Greek Showcase.

He didn’t come right away, but when he did, I didn’t notice. I was talking to my friend, not caring about the crowd of smelly, sweaty college students.

Then I felt the tug of my heart turn me around, and there he was. Talking among his bros. They looked dumb, but he didn’t.

I wanted to go up to him, but the worst scenario played out immediately in my mind. What if I stuttered my words? What if I fell on my face? What if in the process of going up to him, I stumbled on a rock, did a flip and ripped my pants? I’d cry. So I did none of that. Instead, I sat back and stared and stared and stared.

In another version of the myth, Zeus separates humans out of fear that they’d be too perfect. Despite the heat, ants eating me alive, loud college students and dancing Greeks, the only thing we had in common was this myth. I felt less than perfect and maybe that’s why I needed my other half.

One foot in front of the other, waving his hands around, throwing up what seemed to be gang signs to my non-Achaean eyes.

I tend to be delusional, so my brain got carried away as I looked at their letters. Beta means house. I wonder if being with him would feel like home. Iota means a small amount. Will he give me an iota of attention? Omega means the last of the series. Would he be my end and my beginning? Lastly, Lambda, wavelength. Would we be on the same one?

When he came up to me and said hey, I gasped. Is this how Eurydice felt when she first saw Orpheus? As he kept walking, I didn’t want him to turn around. I wanted to believe he might love me enough to get me out of hell. Or Laredo heat, anyway. But wait. In the myth, he turns around because he loves her. Did I want him to turn?  When he did, I heard the strums of a lyre. Was I lying to myself? Was this all a myth?

The semester is just beginning and recruitment week is only starting. We have the rest of the semester to find our way back to each other. And I’m hoping Hephaestus approves. Hephaestus, if you didn’t know, is also the Greek god of blacksmiths. Hopefully our union will be as strong as the chains he made for the gods. In the meantime, I’ll continue to look at him in the distance and stare, and stare and stare.