I Don't Care Much

I read an article recently that resonated with me. Like the author, as I near fifty, I too find that I don’t care about many things. I feel a sense of recklessness, a sense of liberation and telling my inner voice to shut up is curiously satisfying. And this comes from this sense I have that I increasingly care very little about what people think of me!!!

And I realise that this feeling has kept many women paralysed for very long. From the time we are young girls, we are told to behave ourselves because “what would people think of you if they saw / heard….” Who are these people I now wonder? Who are these nameless faces who have been standing at the edges of my life condemning my moments of silliness, my social gaffes, my failures? And how is it that I never did hear their approval despite me having followed the rules? How is it that these “people” have not stopped other women from living dangerous lives?

The time has come I think, when I am going to reclaim myself from these “people”. The time has come for me to know myself fully and wholly. And to do the things I want to do, go to places I want to see, speak when I want to, be silent when I want to, attend functions that I wish to go to, be with the people I appreciate and who make me happy, eat food that I crave and to say, no thank you.

If at all I have learnt anything, I have learnt by now, what is important and what isn’t, what I should listen to and when I should laugh at myself and at others. Because, hey, those “people” who were supposed to be watching me and judging me and looking at what I wear and where I go and what I do? They truly don’t care!!!! :)

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." - Emerson