This week's reading "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway, it opens on a scene of a couple at a train station in Barcelona, Spain. Just from reading the short story, the couple is agitated at one another for whatever reason, anything each other says to one another becomes another bickering argument between the two. If I had anything to say about this week's short story, it was definitely hard giving an opinion when I had no idea what exactly was going on.
Does she stay in her relationship with the man? It doesn’t sound like the woman was ever really going to leave him, they talk about being happy again and living their lives as if everything was okay. They honestly sound like a bickering couple arguing about something from the night before and it carried over into the next day, and anything that’s said to one another just becomes that little annoying argument that adds on to whatever the dilemma is for the couple. What does me drive me crazy and what made this a little difficult to answer is I cannot put two and two together to finding out what it is they are arguing about. She is getting an operation and this operation is going to make the couple okay again. Imagine probably having the answer sitting right in front of your face and I probably look incredibly stupid. When have you made an important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship OR stay or leave a difficult situation? The difficult situation that I made the stupid decision to leave is when I was a freshman in high school, I was a couple months fresh (ha ha). Made the soccer team and befriended a girl who became a huge factor of how I eventually became the person I am today. We were on the soccer team together, had I believe one or two classes together and eventually became best friends. As young and dumb high schoolers, we drank in the woods around a fire, it was still warm out and we were embracing every moment we had left wearing sandals. Our group had gotten a bottle of watermelon vodka in which we were all passing around. As the night went on, we'd all hit our limit and my friend had a one sip more. She became unresponsive and her body was like Jell-O. The guys had carried her back to our one friend's house and laid her down, it was clear she had alcohol poisoning. I was scared for her and I was also scared about getting in trouble, in my 14-15 year old brain, she was taken care of, the ambulance was coming and the guys seemed to have things under control. I ended up going home that night and leaving her instead of being a friend and staying with her and owning up to getting in trouble. Feeling absolutely terrible about my decision, I called my mom while she was at work and told her about the events that had happened the night before, my friend was going to be fine but she was told about how I handled the situation. I was grounded for about two months after that. My friend and I didn’t talk for some time. We still played soccer together, and we spoke to each other when it seemed necessary. I can't tell you how long it actually was that we didn’t speak but it was a good amount of time. I think we started to finally talk again the end of our sophomore year, and had rekindled a little bit more our junior year and finally became close again our senior year. After years of a growing friendship, I can't imagine my life without her and after that one night still haunting me every now and again, I'm happy she forgave me and we've been best friends for almost 10 years now.
3 Comments
Dylan Fox
2/17/2018 04:15:33 pm
I have actually been in a very similar situations when I was a freshman in HS. Going to parties and drinking underage, trouble was always bound to happen. Although you regret your decision to leave you friend, at least you learned from it and were able to repair the friendship!
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Jen
2/20/2018 03:34:17 pm
High School was constant anxiety know that I look back on it haha
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Molly Zahner
2/20/2018 09:45:52 am
I agree with you that she might have stayed with the man. It seemed like her love for him was blinding all his faults. Also, your story is good example of leaving a difficult situation even though you regretted it later. It's good that you guys made up and are friends again :)
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