Honey, Don't Take It Personally! Five Annoying Words

Character flaw or attribute, I don’t know which, but I tend to lean toward the sensitive side. This has been my MO (modus operandi) since birth and I don’t see any signs of it waning as I plunge in to my plus years. And so often, when my sensitivity would assert its pesky prickles, friends/family members would often say, “Honey, don’t take it personally!”-As a kid when my bratty brother teased me relentlessly, and, like the proverbial electrocuted cat, I would scream and run after him, fingernails drawn. Parental referees would invariably intervene saying, “Honey, don’t take it personally. He’s just being an annoying little brother.- So I get married and my former husband, who never met a “constructive” criticism he didn’t love, could not help commenting on my culinary capabilities, academic credentials, and literary choices. Cue up the image of the electrocuted cat- I would go ballistic. Again, I would hear, “Honey, don’t take it personally”. (spoiler alert, guess who is not my husband any longer)-So, many years later, as director of a non-profit creative arts program for at-risk kids, my 14 year program and my person are under attack by someone with an obvious personality disorder. Once again, listen for the refrain…Honey, don’t take it personally!-And ta-da (as my grandson would say) recently, two of my besties (BFFs), with whom I’ve shared years of love and friendship, married in a secret ceremony.  It was the secrecy not the privacy part that stung. And, of course, I keep hearing….Honey, don’t take it personally!When you are in a relationship with loved ones, how can you not take things personally? Relationships, by their very nature, are all about the personal. I feel like conducting an exorcism on the English language to eradicate these five annoying words.