Don't take things personal

How many times have we heard that?
Don't take things personal.
It's them, not you.
Brush it off.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words don't hurt.
What else is there?

The other night I received a text from a woman I barely know. I can count on one hand the number of times we've spoken more than one word to each other. Let alone saw each other for more than a minute. I actually can't count more than like twice but that's neither here nor there.

We were at a party together the other night and I received this text:
NOW I remember why we didn't care for Robin (sic) much. She just jumped [name]'s s**t for accidentally spilling a single noodle on the floor--- along with all of her other snide comments all evening. Sigh...

I received this during the party. Needless to say I had to take a few breaths and the fun was pretty much over for me once received.  I cried. I tend to cry a lot lately. I didn't know how to respond (I didn't).

Now, mind you I did give someone a hard time about the noodle, but I was joking and I know (or at least hope) she took it jokingly (when we're together we are several calamities waiting to happen, pretty much every time). So I'm not really worried about that situation. But the snide comment. That's harsh. I can be sarcastic. No, I am sarcastic. I am also blunt and tend to blurt things out before thinking. I work hard on not doing that. I, of course, analyzed EVERYTHING I said all night long and can think of a couple comments that could come off wrong. But none-the-less, nothing should have bothered this person so much as to text another friend (whomever she was trying to text) and bitch about me. I also asked a friend how I was and she said she didn't notice anything I said throughout the night. I stewed. and stewed. And cried some more.

I finally had that moment when I thought: don't take things personally, it's not about you, it's about them. Social work 101. It's not about me. Sure I can be snarky. I can be snide. Call me out on them if they offend you. I'll realize it and apologize. Don't act all friendly then talk about me behind my back.

So what did I learn about this? I am going to be very careful when around said person. I am not going to allow this person to break me. I deleted the text so I'm not analyzing it more. And, sure the text was about me, but it's really not about me. It's about her. (I could analyze what exactly it's about because... well, that's what I do. And to be honest I started to. But I won't. That's not my business.)

And I won't take it personal any longer.