Spring 2003.
Mid-morning.
I got a phone call from a friend.
(This was back when I had a landline and friends actually called each other to chat instead of texting.)
At first it seemed she just wanted to chat about normal day to day stuff then she dropped the big news on me: A mutual friend of ours was talking crap about me to another mutual friend of ours and somehow it all got back around to this friend I was talking to.
Gasp.
On the phone I blew it off.
I may have said something like this "I'm 26 years old, the mother of a busy infant and the wife of a soldier who is in a war zone. I do not have the time nor do I want to waste the time I have to bother with this chic talking bad about me. Good riddance."
I hung up, feeling all tough, but I couldn't shake it off.
I wasn't really that close to either of these not-using-their-nice-words people, but I was really bothered by the fact that one of these two would resort to this kind of gossip. The other one, I never really liked in the first place so I truly didn't care. But the one, I thought there was something there, I could really see us being better friends, and this new revelation bothered me.
I did something that was hard at the time, I called her.
I called and told her what the mutual friend had said about her talking about me and I told her I was a little upset about it.
She did something that shocked me.
She admitted it.
A quick conversation resolved a petty issue.
I said "hey you aren't being nice"
and she said "I know, I shouldn't have engaged in that behavior".
And I said "ok don't do it again".
Simple honesty.
Simple forgiveness.
That conversation was nearly 13 years ago.
That not so nice friend? My dearest Mika.
Every once in a while I think about that conversation. I think about how I could have blown this thing up, held a grudge, hated her.
I think about how different that conversation would have gone if she had, out of pride, denied any wrongdoing.
How very very very (overkill I know but its so true) different my life would have been.
Because that person who could have become an enemy, is one of the greatest blessings bestowed on me. And the relationship that Matt has with her husband is another one of the greatest blessings bestowed on me, and the relationship that our families have is beyond words amazing.
You see pride gets in the way of the simple things like honesty and forgiveness.
How different is your life? How different is your relationships? What are you missing? Or what might you miss out on because you cannot simply come with an open honest heart to the table and say "hey you took my cookie and it made me sad?" And give that person the opportunity to say "I'm sorry, let me buy you a dozen to make up for it, and from now on, lets share our cookies".
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