Old Enough Not to Care (Holly Schindler)

My mom has always sworn that the main perk of getting old(er) is that you don't care what other people think. 

I'm old enough now to think she's right. 

It seems to me that for the most part, especially when we're young, identity is a horrible pursuit of being unique in only an acceptable way. Or, I guess I should say that was my own experience. Clothes were a big sticking point with me when I was young. My family didn't have a ton of money, and I couldn't exactly afford the right names. So I wound up going the opposite way. I shopped thrift stores and went funky. It became sort of my calling card. People knew my by it. I got a lot of comparisons to the Molly Ringwald character in Pretty in Pink. But the funkiness meant I couldn't be judged for not having the right names. 

Problem solved--in an acceptable way. 

Of course, when you get to be an adult, no one cares so much about that stuff. But the judgment doesn't go away. It's just that people start judging your job or marital status. 

Even more painful (or scary) than that? They judge the things you wrote. A couple months before my first book came out, I blew up in hives every night. It hit me: "So when this thing comes out, anybody who wants to can pick this thing up off the shelf, sift through the contents of my brain, and pass judgment on it?"

Yes. Yes, they can. 

New releases don't make me blow up in hives anymore. I don't care which side of my head TikTok says I should part my hair on. I wear glasses and don't dye my gray hair.  

Mostly, I think you just live long enough to realize that judgment lasts roughly ten seconds. And then the judger is off to something else. You're the one who has to live with your job or your husband (or not) or what you wrote. So it better be what you really like and really mean. 

Anybody who sticks around for all that? 

That's your true group. The ones who belong. 

~

Holly Schindler is the author of the YA A Blue So Dark.