The short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway shows how difficult it can be to decide to stay in a relationship that isn’t working out or a relationship that doesn’t go the way people plan it to go. In the story there is a man who is relocating and a woman who is in a relationship with the man and they’re arguing about whether she should go with him. By the way the conversation goes, the woman decides to stay in the relationship with the man. I relate to this struggle because there was a time where I was in with a relationship with a boy and he got into a lot of trouble and it was a tough decision to whether I should stay with him or not.
Does she stay in her relationship with the man? I think she does stay in the relationship with the man. I say she does stay in the relationship due to the way they spoke to each other. The conversation did not come off to me as an aggressive argument, it did not seem like an argument at all. Yes, there were bits where the lady did get a little snippy, but not necessarily argumentative. I don’t blame her though if my boyfriend was going somewhere far and he wanted me to just uproot my life and go with him I’d be a little snippy too. She really wanted to make him happy though, so when he was trying to persuade her to come with him she was really taking into consideration how happy they would be again and how she only wants to make him happy. I’d want the same for my boyfriend I’d want what’s best for both of us and what makes our relationship better. She also reminisces about when they used to be happy and there wasn’t any distance between them. When they she would mention the white elephants and he liked it and didn’t have such a vague response to that statement. She just wanted things to be to be the way they were. So, yes I do think she stayed in the relationship with the man and I also think she did decide to relocate with the man. When have you made a important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship? A time I have made an important choice to leave a relationship is when I decided to leave my first serious boyfriend. I met my boyfriend through a mutual friend we instantly hit it off, we liked the same things and had similar senses in humor. What I didn’t know about my boyfriend at the time was that he was into drugs and I’m not just talking about marijuana. He was into hardcore drugs like cocaine and meth. I didn’t know anything about his drug issues until 3 months into our relationship and I was instantly brought to a difficult place in my mind. On one hand I liked him, he treated me better than any other boy had treated me and he didn’t act any different when he was high (I thought this was peculiar.) But I was strictly against hardcore drugs, I knew their effects and what they did to your Briana and body. I distinctly remember the situation in which he told me, we were hiking at one of my favorite hiking spots and he said “Gabby, there’s something I haven’t been completely honest with you about and I feel now’s the right time to tell you.” Of course this brought me to a state of panic, as it would with anyone. “What could you possibly have been so scared to tell me that you hid it from me for 3 months?” I asked. “Well, I know your stance on this topic and I didn’t want you to think differently of me.” He said. I immediately knew he was going to say something that involved hardcore drugs. “Gabby, I do meth and cocaine and if this changes your opinion of me I understand but I hate sneaking around you to hide it.” I was so shocked I didn’t even suspect he was doing anything like that, he never acted like he was on anything. As much as I liked him and even though he was my first serious relationship I had to get out of it. I knew he wouldn’t stop even if it was for me, I knew I couldn’t bring someone like that to meet my parents, and I couldn’t watch someone I care about slowly but surely kill themselves. So, as though as the decision was 2 weeks after he told me about the drugs I broke up with him and I haven’t spoken with him since.
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The podcast What You Don’t Know by Lulu Wang describes a difficult situation in which Lulu’s grandmother is diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and her family decides to lie to the grandmother. The family throws this big fake wedding as a way to say goodbye to their grandmother. It was hard for everyone to keep their mouths shut about the cancer, but they succeeded and many family members believe that the reason why the grandmother didn’t die was because they “rinsed out her misfortune with joy.” I don’t know if I necessarily believe that, but that’s what they think. I can relate to Lulu’s situation because there was a time where I had to tell my best friend a difficult truth that I knew was going to end our friendship.
Did you agree with the family's choice to deceive Wang's grandmother? I’m at a crossroads with the whole situation. When I first started listening to the podcast I thought that Lulu’s family was wrong for lying to their grandmother. If I were in Lulu’s position I would defy my mother and tell my grandmother. I was adamant about their grandmother knowing that she had stage 4 lung cancer. I put myself in Lulu’s grandmother’s shoes and I know if I had stage 4 lung cancer I’d want to know and I’d most definitely want treatment. Then, as the podcast went on, I thought it was even worse that they were staging this fake wedding just to avoid telling her she had cancer. When it came time to actually have the “wedding” I heard Lulu’s grandmother having a good time, she was happy and that’s when my mood started to shift. Yes, Lulu’s grandmother did have the right to know she had cancer, but after the wedding I took into consideration the amount of worry it would cause her. I thought about my grandmother. I wouldn’t want her to be in her 80’s and being worried about dying from cancer and how she’s going to pay for treatment or how long she has left. I wouldn’t want to see my grandmother like that, I’d want to see her enjoying the time she has left. At the end of the podcast Lulu explains that her grandmother lived far long after her cancer diagnosis and her family believes there’s many reasons for her staying alive. Lulu’s grant aunt, Little Nainai believes that she lived longer because they “washed away her misfortune with joy.” At first I thought “no no no that’s weird it doesn’t work that way.” But thinking about it maybe it does work that way. Being American I feel that we’re raised to take things in a logical sense, we don’t really have any old legends of “washing away misfortune with joy” or anything like that. If someone who's close to us has cancer or if we ourselves have cancer we’d automatically find out what we needed to do treat it. The Chinese are different in that way and I think sometimes it’s a good thing to look at things in a spiritual sense instead of a physical being sense. When have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? A time I had to make a choice to tell someone a difficult truth is when I had to tell my best-friend that we couldn’t be friends anymore due to her toxic personality. I met my best friend in the 8th grade, we connected the second we met each other. We had similar personalities and interests because of this we did everything together. I was constantly at her house or she was constantly at time. I don’t think there’s a time we weren’t together. Now, you should probably know at the time she was my only friend. I wasn't very social when I was younger and I’m not very social now, but she just got me I felt comfortable around her. I told her everything she knew me like the back of her hand. As I started my first year in high school I decided I was going to try my best to meet new people and make new friends. My best friend didn’t like that very much. I was never an athletic kid, I hated gym with everything I had I could never do the activities right because I had no interest. Luckily for me there was another girl exactly like me in my gym class and we failed at doing the physical exercises together. I’d see my gym buddy (as I called her) in the hallways and of course I’d be walking with my best friend. I would wave to my gym buddy and say hello just to be nice I know I’d want her to do the same for me, I thought of it as respectful. My best friend didn’t appreciate me waving to my gym buddy at all. She walked away from me very angrily and she ignored me for a whole week. I was so confused I didn’t understand why she was ignoring me or what I did. I tried asking her but she said “she didn’t want to talk about it” and that “I should know.” She eventually got over it. I decided I didn’t want to lose her so I stopped making new friends and I kept my friendship with my gym buddy secret. For the rest of my freshman and sophomore year things went smooth sailing, we were back to normal. Then in October of my junior year I went to a football game with another one of my friends and I slept over at her house. I had posted pictures of us at the game on my snapchat story and my best friend was again, not happy. She did the same thing she did when I waved to my gym buddy, she ignored me and never talked to me about it. I decided this was enough. She’s a junior in high school and she’s dictating who I get to be friends with and I had enough. I thought “last I checked this is America I can be friends with whoever I want.” I never told her she couldn’t be friends with any of her other friends, but she could do it to me? I don’t think so. I made the big decision to facetime her and say “hey I appreciate you being my friend for the past couple years but, you’re very controlling and I can’t deal with that anymore so I think it’s best we stop being friends.” She wasn’t mad or anything, she just said “ok.” That was it and I have yet to regret that decision. |
Gabrielle Heck
This blog is to express my thoughts and options on specific topics. Archives
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