In Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, a man and a woman are sitting at a bar while they wait for the train. They are discussing something, without really saying what they are discussing. The man feels one way about a certain operation, and it seems as though the woman really feels the opposite. He seems to be pushing her a bit, and she questions the things that he is saying. As if whatever it is they are discussing would really change anything. He says it won’t and that things will go back to how they were “before”.
I think the woman may have stayed with the man. Whatever procedure they were discussing, he wanted to do but she was unsure of whether she wanted to go through with it or not. I think she may have stayed with him because he kept telling her that it was ultimately up to her what was done, and that she didn’t do it if she didn’t have to. He tells her he loves her anyway, no matter what. Often, we as humans, only need to hear that before we make our decisions. We just want acceptance from the person we love and to know that they have our back regardless of the decision they are about to make. I have gone through a few bad break ups, and lost quite a few friends along the way, but one sticks in my mind the most. I don’t know if I really “walked away” or if we just grew apart somewhat naturally. Some might say I have, after explaining the situation, or may say that I didn’t try hard enough to keep a friend. I had a best friend that I considered more of a sister. I was friends with her for some time before I met her brother, who became my boyfriend. Him and I were together for a few years and it was a rocky relationship from the start. My friend was always on my side, no matter what, despite him being her brother. Her loyalties always were with me, and that was for her own reasons really. He was in and out of jail a good portion of his teenage and adult life and for the most part that’s why she kept her distance. She and I did everything together, were together every day and then some. After a few years, she decided she needed to get away from her family and her and her boyfriend moved to another state. She really wasn’t that far, and I visited as often as I could, both by myself and with her brother. Another couple of years went by and she moved a few more times, each time being a little farther than the last. We still always kept in touch but over time it became harder to travel more due to the distance. Finally, her brother and I broke up for good reasons. The relationship wasn’t a good one and she was still always on my side. After the break up, her and I started to drift a little, as I started dating someone knew after some time, and I began to keep my distance. We would argue more, I felt as though she was judging me, often for the same things that she had once done. I felt like she questioned my new relationship and I began to withdraw myself more from her. I was tired of always feeling as though I was being “bitched” at. We would argue mostly over text message, which it seems that’s how everyone loves to communicate these days. Often, emotion is lost within texts. She was also like her brother in the sense that when they were mad, they would say hurtful things. It was their go-to. We stopped talking for quite some time, I just flat out stopped answering her. I didn’t talk to her for a good 6 months or more. One day I decided to answer one of her random messages and we began to try to work on our relationship. She eventually fell into the same pattern of always questioning me, and I know at the end of the day it was because she cared for me and wanted the best for me. Our relationship became more of an on and off friendship. She moved back to the area and we tried again to be friends. She was so demanding of my time and claimed that I didn’t care because I didn’t come around as often. Truth is, my life is completely different now. My work schedule is different, my other relationships are different. I gained new friends and I would try to involve her, but she was never very accepting of the people I was with. We kept at it, trying to be friends. Just before Christmas, I found out I was expecting my first child and was really excited to tell her about it. She was the first one I told. And she was happy for me! We hung out a few times after that and then ultimately it came down to the fact that I STILL wasn’t making enough time for her. In my eyes, that wasn’t fair, though, because I had so many other responsibilities than we had when we were just out of high school. We ended up back in one of our same old arguments, and she was again telling me I had changed, but changing isn’t a bad thing.. its only seen as bad to the people who don’t want you to evolve into the person you are meant to become. We just decided on parting ways, ultimately realizing that we just don’t know each other the way we used to, and that we may never be able to get that back. I never imagined a life where I would be raising a child without my best friend, but I guess things happen. Maybe one day we can communicate again and see where life takes us.
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Lulu Wang’s story of lying to her grandmother for her health (What You Don't Know) was interesting. They believed that keeping her grandmother’s diagnosis from her would actually keep her healthier than telling her that she had cancer. I understand why they did this. They care for their grandmother and want her to live the rest of her life without having to deal with any negativity. Lulu wasn’t okay with lying to her grandmother, but she knew it was important for her well-being.
I can agree with why Lulu’s family chose to keep this from her because I would want my grandmother to live her last few months as happy and peacefully as she could, as well. I know that it would be hard, not being able to properly say goodbye. Often, cancer treatment is invasive and can make people feel a lot sicker than they would without it. Lulu’s grandmother was also only given a few months, so medication may not have been an option at that point. They chose to pull off this elaborate scheme with a wedding celebration, so that everyone could come together and have their last times with Lulu’s grandmother. Lulu’s grandmother ended up living past her 3 month “time-frame”, and the family believes this is due to the fact that they gave her joy instead of worry. This makes sense to me because people say that stress does the most damage to a person. To be honest, this blog post is a bit difficult for me to write because I don’t feel like I have ever been in a situation where something was too hard to tell someone, or where I felt like I needed to lie to someone to make them feel better. I have always had relationships in my life where I can be open with the people in my family and we all talk amongst each other. We feel as though it is important to share our struggles, so we can all pray together and for one another. My family believes that prayer is truly the best medicine and God will do what he wants in any situation. Most of my family is in the church heavily and realize that we don’t have control over what is happening in most cases. I suppose I can understand why people may do either of these things in certain situations. I have been lied to in order to “protect my feelings”, but after I find out, I realize I would have rather known exactly what was going on. I tried to dig deep to think of something to relate myself to this story, but maybe my life has luckily been uneventful in that way. After reading My Name Is Margaret by Maya Angelou, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes we have to do things, whether handled correctly or not, to get our points across and allow our silent voices heard by people who may otherwise ignore them.
Margaret broke some dishes that were important to Ms. Glory’s mistress to let her know that she refused to be disrespected any longer. I have to say that I agree with her decision because otherwise she would have been doing herself an injustice by dealing with it. Sometimes you let things go for so long that you leave yourself no other choice but to handle them the only way your heart knows how to at the time. The women in the story repeatedly called her by a name that was not hers, at the convenience of themselves, just because they couldn’t be bothered to say her entire name: Margaret. To them, it was too long and unnecessary. To Margaret, this was rude and disrespectful because this was not the name her mother gave to her. They blatantly showed their lack of respect to her. As someone who rarely holds their tongue and doesn’t hesitate to stick up for myself when necessary, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. Simply voicing your opinion doesn’t always work with people who aren’t willing to hear it. I can’t think of a specific time that I have had to challenge authority because I don’t believe another human has “authority” over another. Mutual respect in all relationships and settings are important to me. There have been times where I felt like my voice needed to be heard, but they are usually in places that “keeping my cool” was detrimental to whatever I was doing at the time, like in a work place. Personally, I can take a lot of stress from other people before I feel the need to “lose my cool”. Of course, I believe in letting someone know how they have bothered you, because how else are they supposed to know and have the chance to fix it? It’s when you give those people the chance and they ignore it, that they begin disrespecting you and you can’t allow anyone to do that to you, no matter what power they feel they have over you. |
AuthorMy name is Ashlee. Enjoy my blog! Archives
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