A few years back, while I was busy yelling at a cloud one day, a compatriot of mine started referring to me as a grumpy old man. I was taken back a bit by that accusation. Sure, I’m old (in a comparative sort of way), but grumpy? Perhaps I was grumbling at the time, but I certainly didn’t feel grumpy. I wasn’t scowling. And I wasn’t rude or belligerent or mad or unhappy. So what made my friend perceive me as grumpy? Just because I said out loud what I was thinking? Because I dared to call a dark cloud a dark cloud?
In the past, I would have never been accused of such a crime. From my youth through early adulthood, I consciously made an effort to temper what I said and did (or didn’t say and didn’t do) around others for fear of raising eyebrows, offending, or appearing the outcast. Being hyper-sensitive to how others perceived me, and fearful that voicing what I thought would risk me not being accepted, I self-censored. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was really just an opinionated nerd masquerading as one of the cool kids. So I went where the herd went and mooed when the herd mooed.
Part of that behavior was my submissive personality. As a young child, I was incredibly bashful and timid. I couldn’t look someone in the face without overwhelming embarrassment. I never spoke in class unless compelled to do so. I couldn’t even let the teacher know that I had to go to the bathroom or was feeling ill. One time when I was in first grade, I became sick at school. But because I was so shy and unassertive, I couldn’t get up in the middle of class to let the teacher know. So I just sat there hoping to suppress the nausea as it got progressively worse. When that strategy predictably failed, I vomited all over the top of my desk. I still remember looking over at Sally, the pretty blonde girl in a blue dress sitting next to me, as she stared back in shocked disbelief at my partially-digested breakfast dripping onto the carpeted floor.
I had an analogous incident happen during my first year in junior high school. When I was in 5th grade, my parents started me on the Oboe and my younger brother on the Bass Clarinet. The band teacher at my elementary school couldn’t believe his good fortune. No one ever played the Oboe or Bass Clarinet, especially at such a young age. Not even geeky band kids. So my brother and I became the shiny objects of the Howard R. Driggs Elementary School band. By the time I reached 7th grade, I was accomplished enough at my woodwind instrument to be Second Chair with the Salt Lake Junior Youth Symphony. My parents were bursting with pride, but it wasn’t something I advertised to my pimply compatriots because I was too embarrassed by it. The Chris Grandys of my school didn’t play effeminate musical instruments. They played football.
One day, the Junior Youth Symphony was scheduled to perform during the middle of a school day. Kids with the symphony were to be excused at 11:00 a.m. to catch the bus to the concert hall. I was in Spanish 1 at the time, a mixed class comprised of both 7th and 8th graders that was led by Señor Davis, a dark little man with beady eyes crowned with brushy eyebrows. I hadn’t told el profesor that I needed to leave beforehand so he was oblivious. When the appointed hour arrived to depart, the entire class was absorbed in silently reading. Not a creature was stirring. I froze. I couldn’t bring myself to get up in front of everyone, announce that I had to leave to go play my Oboe, and walk out. So I didn’t. I just sat there watching as the hands of the clock slowly drained the time away.
I never told my parents about that. And I lied to Mr. Garrison the band teacher that I had somehow missed the bus. No one from the symphony ever said anything to me and I never heard about what happened at the performance. But shortly after that, I quit the Oboe so I could focus on more important endeavors like getting dragged down by dope-smoking acquaintances.
That was then. This is now. And my prior paralyzing bashfulness has morphed into border-line brashfulness. I don’t exactly know when that transformation occurred. It wasn’t spontaneous. I didn’t go to bed one night cowering from my own shadow and wake up the next morning spitting nails. The boldness came on more gradually than that. It seemingly accelerated once I hit my fifties.
I can’t really explain it. Maybe I’m making up for a lifetime of suppressed thoughts and ideas. Perhaps it’s the result of an unconscious recognition that the X axis does not run to infinity and I’m closing in on the end point. Either way, I think something naturally happens to folks as they age. The older you get, the more unfiltered you become. You have less fucks to give so you don’t give any. You do what you want and say what you feel without concern for how others might receive it. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon circumstances, but it is emancipating.
If you’ve ever seen the cartoon series Courage the Cowardly Dog, you know Eustace Bagge as the loveable, yet cantankerous old curmudgeon who is one of his canine's main antagonists. He’s a jaded and cynical character that serves as a counter-balance to his boot-wearing, rolling pin-wielding wife Muriel who is Courage’s protector. Eustace is completely unfiltered which is part of his charm. He pretty much says what he wants even if it earns him a crack on the noggin from Muriel’s rolling pin.
Over the years, I’ve come to embrace my inner Eustace. That embrace has apparently earned me the appellation “grumpy old man,” at least in certain quarters. But I accept that. If the price of authenticity is a disparaging label, I’ll happily take that crack on the noggin. Because at this age, I give my limited remaining fucks very sparingly.
Ooga booga booga!
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