A CHANGE for the GOOD
KERRE FINDS A LITTLE BIT OF STROPPINESS NEVER DOES ANY HARM
Have you noticed that as you get older, you’re getting stroppier? Where you might once have suffered fools, albeit with little grace, now you refuse to tolerate them at all? Even one’s nearest and dearest find they can be on the receiving end of verbal swipes.
I have seen this more and more among my friends and colleagues. Once biddable and pliant women have become uppity. I don’t know what we can attribute this phenomenon to. Perhaps it’s a realisation that time is short.
The raising of the children is done and the supporting of the other half’s career as they fought their way to the top is over.
Once you reach upper middle age, you no longer have to watch your words. You can tell a child to pick up after themselves and clean up the mess. You can walk away from a pompous ass at a party, even if he is an important client of your husband’s.
You can tell a young person in a shop that it’s very rude to conduct a personal conversation on their mobile while you’re waiting to be served. And you don’t give a damn about whether people will like you or not as a result.
I have cheered on friends who have traded in sensible sedans for racy sports cars now their school mum taxi service days are over. When their husbands have suggested they could have bought a car that was much more economical around town, the husbands have been told to go and buy the economical runabout for themselves.
Other women have decided they will no longer put up with sleepless nights, lying awake listening to their husband’s attempts to wake the dead with seismic snoring.
“But we always sleep together,” remonstrated one husband. “No,” said his wife, as she set about putting fresh linen on the spare bed and setting up a reading lamp on the bedside table. “You sleep. I have lain awake next to you for 30 years. Now I’m going to know what it is to sleep through the night. Can you turn the light off on your way out?”
The husband retired, hurt, to his own room and my friend did confess to feeling a pang of guilt about leaving him all alone, neglected and abandoned.
However, the guilt soon dissipated when she heard thunderous snores echoing faintly from the master bedroom before she’d had time to read the first page of her new book.
I don’t think a bit of stroppiness is a bad thing. Although it’s probably a good idea to warn your loved one that things are going to change – or more precisely, that you’re going to change.
I tested the waters the other day with my
Irishman. We were heading to the Japanese restaurant we always go to on Sunday night.
The husband loves it and he also loves routine. He likes to know where we’ll be and what we’ll be doing at any given moment, whereas I like a little more spontaneity. Don’t get me wrong. I love Japanese food. Just not every Sunday.
As we drove to the restaurant the other day, I suggested that we mix it up a little. That every second Sunday perhaps we could try a different restaurant. Ones we hadn’t tried before and ones that offered different styles of food.
The Irishman looked at me in horror. “But we always go to the Japanese on a Sunday!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” I said. “And I don’t want to go every Sunday.”
He looked at me as if I’d grown another head. “You never said,” he responded.
“Well, now I’m saying,” I replied. “What do you think?”
“All right,” he said, dubiously, and sank back into his seat thinking no good would be coming of this first minor rebellion. He’ll be fine. I’m sure he’ll learn to love pasta.
‘Once you reach upper middle age, you no longer have to watch your words’