It isn't you. It's me.

I've received several revelations, both big and small, since I began my morning meditations.  None of these things shows up during meditation, because even if a thought did try to show itself, I'd be simply watching it float past like a far-off cloud in the sky.  Thoughts aren't welcome during meditation.

(Here she goes with that meditation nonsense, I hear some of you muttering.)

It's rather difficult to tell you what the biggest thing is I've discovered, because it's about my own makeup and personality.  I have hesitated to share this because I'm afraid some folks who only know me online are going to try and build me up, telling me this isn't how I am.  Nobody who really knows me will argue with what I am going to say here.  

First of all, I've always freely admitted that I am self-centered.  If you only know me as an Internet friend, you might have figured this out; but I've found in the past that many of my online friends think what they see through the rose-colored glasses of my blog is the whole truth.   Please don't put something in the comments trying to make me feel better in this regard, because believe me, I've never felt better!  From here on, I won't be talking about online friends, but about my real-life friends and relatives. 

Here's a fact about myself I've come to realize more and more lately:  I push people away if they get too close.  I don't have close friends except for my poor husband.  I've had good friends over the years, but the minute they cross some invisible line, I back up and "go to my room".  I've always known I was a loner, so that's really no big surprise.  

I shared my latest discovery with my husband:  "You know Cliff, I've figured out something about myself.  All those people toward whom I've held grudges and despised and griped about (I named one for him), anybody I've felt had insulted me or treated me badly... it wasn't them.  It was me.

And, as he often does, he responded, "You are just now figuring that out?"

If you are rude to me, the only way it will hurt me is if I react, and boy, do I react, which of course, only stokes the fire.  It's always worked for me because I'm a loner anyhow.  Never mind the times I've been the rude one, the one who insulted someone else, the one who didn't follow through on a promise.

I'm seventy-one years old.  I will always be a loner, because that's how I like it.  It's my true nature.  But I do hope I don't spend the rest of my life expecting others to act a certain way or to behave according to my rules.  

Nobody has to like me, or want to be around me or cater to my own expectations.  Feel free to be yourselves, people.  I think I can handle that now.  At least I'm learning.