The Aging Inner Critic
Meet Maude, my inner critic
A funny thing happened over the past decade. My inner critic got old.
The last time I really looked at my inner critic, about fifteen years ago, she looked like the identical twin of my high school art teacher. The one who told me that I didn’t have any artistic talent, thus crushing my dreams of becoming a fashion designer.
I’ve been pushing myself outside my comfort zone again so, just like Mary Poppins, my inner critic showed up with her carpet bag and parrot-headed umbrella, ready to watch over me and teach me a few lessons. She no longer appears as my high school art teacher but is a completely new character running around in my head messing with me.
Her name is Maude and she’s an old woman of the most crotchety type. Her skin is full of wrinkles, her hair is gray, she is short-like me, and thin-not like me, which, she points out, is because I over-indulge in chocolate chip muffins despite her dire warnings about menopausal middles.
She smells of camphor liniment oil and the peppermint candies she clicks against her teeth whenever someone (me) says or does something that she doesn’t think is appropriate for someone my age. Tsk, she clucks to show her disapproval.
She wears sagging support hose, sensible shoes she bought at Clark’s thirty years ago, baby blue polyester pants, and thread-bare white blouses. Her cardigan is the color oatmeal. She’s a strong believer that women of a certain age should dress their age and stop dyeing their hair or wearing make-up. The phrase, “Like putting lipstick on a pig.” Is always on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be unleashed.
She believes in frugality to the point of self-deprivation and that risk taking is for the young. She thinks writing books or making art is a waste of time and, frankly, a little embarrassing. Who do I think I am anyway? Please don’t get her started on the idea of memoir writing. She’ll seethe for hours and remind me that nothing very important really ever happened to me.
Maude makes the inner critics of my past look like pansies.
She claims to be there to protect me. She keeps me from being a red-headed, brash, old woman just like Milly, the woman from the bus trip through Italy I took with my husband when I was in my early thirties.
On one of the mornings of the trip, we could hear Milly, talking in the breakfast room as soon as we exited the elevator. She was explaining to everyone in the breakfast room how cold and awful Germans were. We sheepishly walked by a business man, legs crossed, snapping his German language newspaper in front of his face. She was loud and obnoxious the entire trip, almost missing the bus many times and generally embarrassing the group.
Maude’s goal is make sure I never become Milly.
But at what cost? In saving me from becoming someone who embarrasses herself, is Maude also keeping me from being a hell of a lot of fun? Even Milly was fun despite her ugly American ways. She threw impromptu cocktail parties in the back of the bus after a long day of sightseeing and she made sure her table at dinner was always laughing.
I have to take things Maude points out with a grain salt (or a spoon full of sugar if we are going to continue with the Mary Poppins reference). She can serve her purpose to keep me making a fool of myself but she cannot run the entire show.
Maude loved the pandemic because I was safe and sound inside my house. Other than the occasional Zoom call (when she would sit beside me and point out my double chin on the screen), she didn’t have to remind me to stay in line. But with every step I take back into the world, she’s eyeing me.
Right now, she’s still in her rocking chair, knitting away, but I can see her sidelong glances, worried I’m going to start going back out into the world, dressed in a ridiculous outfits of plaids and florals mixed together, wearing perfume and red lipstick. She sighs. I sigh.
There is still work to do. I know the protection she offers, and I’ll take it into account, but I also know she can play things too safe. I’m ready to stand up to Maude and see what I can do when I don’t let her run the show.
Oh wow, Laura, this is some good writing AND some amazing thought-provoking-ness. The aging inner critic! I will have to give some thought as to what mine looks like.
Surely there is a middle ground between Milly and Maude, and I think that's what I want to achieve. More Milly than Maude, though. Milly sounds kind of fun.
My inner critic is this kid that I use to be. She’s kind of a snot but smart and always does things she’s told not to do. She sits in her little rocking chair with a book on her lap and clucks her tongue when I try things or start to feel good about something I’ve done. She’s so judgmental and sometimes I just want to slap her. But it doesn’t look good to slap a kid. She sneers at me and shakes her head every time I get an idea. “No one wants your crap. You’re just fooling yourself.”
Many times I tell her to shut up and get the hell out of my studio. If she won’t shut up I get more angry. But when it goes too far I give up. Then she’s won. So I try to control me to get that snotty kid to shut up. Some days the kid wins.