I Am...An Onion

I am too nice. Too sweet. I hear that so often, and I have  heard it for a long time. Can one be too nice, too sweet? I know that there have been several times in my life when I have treated someone horribly and felt like a total ass afterwards for doing it. Those moments come flooding back to me unexpectedly and bring the hottest flush of embarrassment to my cheeks. I think, "How could anyone like me after I have treated someone like that???" I may have had my excuses at the time, but there is never a good enough reason to treat someone like they are less than what I am. If I think that they are, then I most certainly think too much of myself.

I remember, as a child, teasing a neighborhood girl to no end. What was her name? Candy? Or was that her mother's name? I just can't remember. I do remember specifically laughing at the girl, calling her names, and chasing her back to her house. I was not alone in doing this, but I do think I had a big part in doing it. I remember even then that it wasn't the right thing to do, but I did it anyway. How is that too nice?

Just out of high school and into college, I had classes with great friends that I had known for quite some time. At some point during that first year in college, something changed for me. I wanted to break away from the teenager that was in high school and become an adult in college. But I felt like my friends still wanted to be in high school. That feeling was not correct, I'm sure, but that was how I felt. We would have classes together and laugh and joke; we ate lunch together, and they continued to drool over magazines of.... who was it? New Kids On the Block? I think, but it's hard to remember for sure. Goes to show you how important it really was. One day, I started to push them away. I stopped talking to them; I stopped sitting with them at lunch. I just cut them out of my life. I never gave them an excuse or a second thought until later in my life. How is that too sweet?

As an adult quickly approaching 40, I realize now how important friends are and how important it is to treat them well so that they know they are appreciated. No one ever likes the feeling of being cut out of someone's life. That hurts. Friends are precious. Perhaps it's karma coming back to bite me now that it's so hard for me to make friends. Perhaps. But what I am about to write is not to send that karma away. It just needs to be said.

I'm sorry. It is incredibly late in coming and much deserved. I'm sorry Candy or Candy's daughter for chasing you and teasing you. I'm sorry Cindy, Tara, and Mindy for cutting you out of my life. None of you deserved that. You didn't do anything wrong. I was just not too nice or too sweet to treat you that way. It may not mean much now, and in this way, but I needed to put it out there in the universe to be read.

So can anyone be too nice or too sweet? Not really. Not even the nicest and sweetest of us. Because we never see all of the layers of someone in one shot. We have an outer layer to protect us, and then we have all of these inner layers that will make you cry if peeled or cut. I am indeed an onion, but perhaps one of a sweeter variety because everyone deserves to be treated as an equal and with respect.

I am a Vidalia.