Sooner Or Later

Jane has her first dance Saturday. A ninth grade boy invited her to the school homecoming dance (He took her to the movies a couple of times as well). It's nice to see Jane growing and changing , but I do miss the days when she was such an enthusiastic little girl and so dependent on me. Haha Now I tell her she is a "terrible" or "brooding" teen.
Do you know what the word "soon" means? I don't. I think I have given up trying to figure it out , because it not only doesn't have a definition, it never was meant to have one. Soon is one of those words we use when we just don't want to answer some person's question when question that makes us uncomfortable. "Hey, Fred! When are you and Sue coming to visit again?" "Soon," says Fred. Ha! That could mean now tomorrow or never. The word is too ambiguous, too indefinite. And we seem to feel comfortable using it because it disarms the other party and it absolves us of any responsibility to be definite.
I got an E mail about four months ago from an E friend I have known here for a couple of years saying, "I want to answer your mail but am too busy now, I will write soon." Well, four months doesn't seem like soon to me, and I am still waiting for that promise E mail. But maybe for someone else four months is soon.
If I tell a 3 year old to wait for his cookie and milk and that it is coming "soon", he or she will interpret soon to mean, "Now". "You said my milk and cookie was coming soon. Where is it?" Tell that same child he can play awhile longer but must come inside "soon", and he thinks soon means an eternity.
Will an 85 year old arthritic patient, whose hip is agonizingly painful, think the relief that a cortisone shot the doctor injected is going to bring relief "soon". Nope. Soon to that sufferer means "NOW". But if that doctor then told the old man had terminal cancer and would die "soon", the old man would surely expect to live a long time before "soon" appeared, much longer than he waited for the cortisone shot to give relief.
Hmmmmmmm I bet right now you are saying to yourself,. "Why is Jim wasting my time with another one of his stupid observations. I hope he shuts up SOON and makes a point." You want a point and some sense from this E mail, ok I will do it "soon". Haha "Soon is relative, isn't it? That's the point to make, that we use some language for avoidance. Maybe that E friend thinks that writing more than four month later to me is, "soon". Or perhaps there is no intention to write again. But whichever it is, it leaves me in wonderment and confusion as to when or if I will get that next mail. So, saying "soon" to someone gives the speaker power and makes the receiver passive and waiting. That's not good.
I think there are many other indefinite words like "soon" that we use too much, and maybe we should be try to be more precise. Don't you agree? Oh, I am running out of energy today. But I promise to write a normal, thoughtful, intelligent E mail.....someday SOON.