All Barriers of Pride

It was Sunday morning, 8am, the sky was overcast and the footsteps of children running down the stairs to rush off to church sounded like a pack of wild boars. I got up to make coffee and looked outside my kitchen window and noticed the neighbors in the next building over were packing up a U-Haul, filling it up with all of their furniture and belongings. As I waited for the coffee to brew, I kept watching them as they bustled back and forth, carrying out wooden drawers one by one and boxes with huge marker labels on them. They weren’t saying one word to one another. They looked sad. After a few minutes, my assumption about their sadness was evident. They started arguing in the middle of the street when I finally got wind of a slight reason why they were moving: they were breaking up. The humid air seemed to have amplified their voices throughout the complex. Their screams of tensions were really screams of ‘please let’s not do this’---but their pride got in the way and somehow, they resolved to end their union bitterly.

Questions in my head were raised, like why were they packing up their stuff in the same U-Haul if it was that bitter of a breakup? Were they just trying to save money, or were they relocating to another home together, yet apart? Were they forced to live together anyway? Maybe the U-Haul was making two stops... My heart broke as I watched them still moving their stuff, passing one another in silence, and then sometimes, adding hurtful accusations and words to their opened wounds. I would hate to have seen this couple break up due to a huge misunderstanding. When two people, (or even one person in the relationship) has too much pride in their heart, there is no room for understanding. It’s just blown off and the other person is always to blame. The other person is always seen as “the crazy one”. Why do most exes call their past loves, “my crazy ex”?

Pride.

I do believe that pride is the root cause of insecurity issues. “I’m going to reject you before you reject me” type of mindset. Our past sometimes screws with us, leaving us to think that everyone is going to do the same thing that everybody else did: they left us. Fear of abandonment is more common than we think. I am not sure if the mindset ever changes or progresses as we get older and/or have more experiences, but it’s always embedded in us, regardless. Even if we do evolve to a better place, we still have that vulnerability that we tend to hide, making people believe that we’re strong enough, tough enough and able to take on the blows, when in actuality, we’re still that child begging to be loved, yearning for that one person we’ve once cherished to say, “it’s ok, I’m here now...” Even though that may never happen, we try to develop nurturing relationships with a huge shield in front of our chests, protecting our hearts.

The U-Haul was filled to the brim and the doors of the truck were closed and locked up. As I watched it drive off out of the complex, I just prayed that all of their misunderstandings and miscommunications would one day bypass all barriers of pride.