The Aging 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. But I looked my inner critic up the other day and discovered that witch got old!

She no longer appears as my high school art teacher but is a completely new character running around in my head messing with me.

She tells me her name is Maude and she’s an old woman of the most crotchety type. Her skin is creped and 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 and She doesn’t).

She smells of camphor liniment and the peppermint candies she clicks against her teeth whenever someone (me) says or does something that She doesn’t think is “appropriate”. Tsk.

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.

She 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. The woman we could hear talking in the breakfast room one morning as we exited the elevator. She was going on and on about how cold and awful Germans were, as we walked by a business man, legs crossed, snapping his German language newspaper in front of his face. With Maude on my side, I will never become the Milly of the group.

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? (And Milly was FUN when she wasn’t being an ugly American.)

Is Maude keeping me from writing most days? Wearing the clothes I want to wear because I’m afraid I’ll look old and fat? Keeping me from doing unseemly things and encouraging me to bore myself (and likely others) to tears?

Those are the questions I am currently mulling over. 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 outfit of plaid and florals mixed together, wearing perfume and red lipstick (at least I used to wear a mask to cover that up!). She knows her vacation is coming to end.

But I’ve named her now. 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.   

*Name changed.

How about you? Who's your inner critic? Describe them in the comments below. Tell me what they are keeping you from doing.