Entry 4: Language

About two years ago, I had a pet rabbit. Her name was Nahoa. In the summer of her passing, I had my cousin take care of her because I was going away on trips. I couldn't leave my pet under the supervision of my Mom because my Mom was deathly terrified by rodents. When I came home from my vacations, I was so excited to see my pet rabbit again. I asked my mom to come with me to my cousin's house, which was down the street, so that she could help me carry my bunny's cage, with my bunny in it, back to our house. But my Mom killed my excitement by saying, "Nahoa has gone." Hearing the word "gone" freaked me out, and lead me to believe she somehow ran away. But my mom really meant that my bunny was long been dead. In this case, my Mom's choice of words for my pet's death is an example of ambiguous language and euphemism. True that my rabbit was gone, but gone obviously has many meanings. It could mean that the subject has left, or maybe the subject was hidden for a short while, or in my Mom's case that the subject has left this world entirely and permanently. The location and time frame for the word "gone" varies. Also, instead of being harsh, she softened the idea of death by saying that she had "gone." My Mom didn't come right out by saying what was the definite term so as to give consideration for my feelings. The choice of words obviously gave me the wrong sense of fear. But after being certain of what she meant, I almost felt more joy out of the idea that she might only be missing instead of actually being dead.

Recently this month, my boyfriend and I got into an argument. And we were back and forth with "you" statements. I was upset with my boyfriend, Aldrin, because I felt that he took me to a bar called, SGT Pepper's Dueling Piano Club, for our 1 year anniversary celebration. What upset me was this was a very crowded, rowdy bar, with almost everyone in there being belligerent and drunk. His rebuttal was that this club was something we never did before: a bar with two piano players singing and playing any request, and that I like new things. But I found it really difficult to connect with my boyfriend on any kind of romantic level because there was a lot of noise going on. So once we got home, I gave him every mean "you" statement I had in me:
"You are such a guy."
"You don't ever care about me!"
"It's always what YOU want!!"

Talk about a bad 1 year anniversary. It was terrible. I had become so frustrated, that instead of really explaining myself properly, specifically with "I" statements, I had gone on attack mode. Being on attack mode set him up that he had to be defensive against me. I should have said something like, "I know you tried to be thoughtful, but I would've really appreciated somewhere quiet and romantic. Being at that bar made me feel like you don't care about my interests, and so it makes me feel that I have to be angry with you and start a fight with you." But none of that actually came out. In fact, my boyfriend was the one who interestingly enough stopped arguing with "you" statements, and turned around with the "I" statements. By doing the "I" statements, we easily wrapped up our feelings and the argument ended soon after.