Pride and punishment

I had a really interesting conversation the other night. It was with my friend, Kate. We were sharing life with eachother and how certain friendships and relationships were just at weird places. I was telling her about a friend who lives in the same town as me, but we haven't seen each other since school ended, even though I thought we were really close. I also had not been making much of an effort to see this person, hoping that he would initiate with me. Finally, sitting in the passenger seat of Kate's car, she turns to me and asks, "What's more important, your pride? Or seeing [this person] before he's gone?" I sat back against the seat stunned. What was more important to me? I definitely have an issue with pride. But is it more important than seeing someone who I had called my best friend at one point be he jets off to another country for several months? I ended up telling her that I really didn't have definite answer, but it was something to think about.

And I did think about it. I ended up actually texting him the next day--a big accomplishment for me. Now I'm not going to say that it was a huge learning experience. It really didn't end up well. We still didn't see each other for the first time until a couple days later, and even that wasn't anything special. But I did lay down my pride for one day and tried to make the first step.