Sensitive But Unclassified

Sensitive but unclassified and also paywalled partway down because I talk about my former mother-in-law a bit. Paid subscriptions help support writers who don’t freelance anymore because…a thousand reasons, insultingly low pay and AI slop being at the top of the list. But if a paid sub ($45 for a year of weekly posts) isn’t in your budget, just message me, and I’ll comp you:

Lately, I’ve been especially enjoying being in my mid-50s and not giving a shit about what people think of me. I’ve been generally free from that affliction most of my adult life (the great exception was my parents), ever since a bad tailspin in my early twenties, but lately, living so freely, without fear of the judgment of others, feels like sinking deeper and deeper into a soft, clean, cozy bed.

Now, I just walk out of situations I don’t want to be in, and I’m getting better at not finding myself in them in the first place. I’ve stopped trying to be helpful to and supportive of people who take it for granted and don’t reciprocate (this one took me decades). I try to maintain a baseline of kindness, but not at the expense of my soul.

I was particularly impressionable when I started college, which is already an important time for learning about yourself and the world. I remember other students lowering their voices when they were about to deliver what they seemed to think were truth bombs, like “how can you eat (that food) or buy (that brand); don’t you know better?” or: “she’s just not a very good person,” or “he’s got some serious issues,” they might say, delivered with performative regret that they had to be the one to inform us of this terrible fact. I didn’t know yet how to consider my sources, and I passed along some of the “wisdom” (I still cringe when I think about lecturing my little sister about how razors are “a tool of the patriarchy,” because, well, yes, sure, but my delivery probably wasn’t endearing).

I was naive as to how manipulative people could be, how conditioned they might have been to seek validation for themselves by trying to shape narratives for and about other people. I just thought everyone knew more than I did, and I didn’t trust my own judgement.

The scorn I came to feel for people who adopt any sort of authority where they have none and try to tell other people “how it is” stems from when I was just seeking information, all the information about the world that I could, but I couldn’t yet discern well who had any sort of credibility and who just tried to act like it, so I sometimes parroted things that were not my own, actual, well-considered beliefs. I learned the very hard way that too often, people simply do not know what the hell they are talking about, that they are trying to spin and conjure and confuse, because if you look and listen closely, you’ll understand that there is actually nothing substantive there. The scorn has morphed into bemusement now, which is, I hope, a reflection of the compassion I’m building for my past selves and for other people.

This isn’t just about mansplaining; arrogance and entitlement aren’t limited by gender. This is about being able to spot posturing a mile away, about sensing the desperation of someone trying too hard to control a situation, about recognizing when someone’s “authority” is a mask thrown over a dangerously deep well of insecurity. It’s dangerous because it can fuel a destructive narcissism that leaves normally rational, reasonable people second-guessing everything, which is the point.

I don’t suffer fools; I never could, but early on, I couldn’t tell precisely who the fools were. Now it’s easy, one of the upsides, perhaps, of menopause, or just survival.

The difference now is that I know when I probably don’t know the whole story, or enough of it anyway to counter and contextualize the foolishness. It’s that I know there is likely more to any story. It’s what helped me let go of what other people might think of me: they have no idea who I really am, just like I don’t know who they really are.

When I was at the center of some family drama and narratives were being constructed about supposed heroes and villains, I learned that there is no point in arguing or even trying to engage with people who care more about their version of the truth than their relationship with me. They cling to it for reasons known only to them; they need to world to be simple, black and white, no messy humanity, no complexity that might challenge the assumptions they’ve made. That’s where they are, and nothing I say will ever change it.

For example: I got a letter from my former mother-in-law, who is in general one of the sweetest humans you’ll ever meet, so full of vitriol and lies that despite the long and