I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Sunday Planning, I plan for the week ahead.
I feel relieved to have gotten through the pre-Thanksgiving road trip and the Thanksgiving holiday, and even more relieved that I don’t have a corporate job so that I have nowhere to be tomorrow, except here at my computer, writing.
I do have a few tasks for next week including getting new tires, continuing work on my pet portraits and other artwork I’m gifting for Christmas, and figuring out this year’s Roth conversion.
But mostly I’m going to be cheering my newfound sense of not having to please people, or accommodate them at my own expense, or hold my tongue because what I’m going to say doesn’t accord with what they believe.
In Aging Out of Fucks: The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore, Ellen Scherr writes:
Welcome to what I call the Great Unfuckening—that point in midlife when your capacity to pretend, perform, and please others starts shorting out like an electrical system that’s finally had enough.
I’m definitely experiencing this. I’m no longer able to accommodate bullshit, like when my neighbor put his trash in my bin without asking.
Yesterday taking my daughter to the airport departure dropoff I found myself boxed in by cars. The Subaru in front of me was empty of people. They were having an animated conversation standing on the sidewalk, with apparently no intention of leaving any time soon. The car next to me was as well silent and not looking like it was going to move either. I pulled up to see if I could pass between them. Nope.
So I tooted my horn.
The driver of the Subaru got this wild angry look in his eye.
“Just a MINUTE” he yelled. And then, maybe realizing that it’s uncool to have a lengthy conversation with the people you’re dropping off at airport departures if you are blocking someone else’s car he moved his car up, parked, and got on with what was, apparently, a very important conversation.
I smiled with as friendly an expression as I could work up given my entirely red face and rapidly beating heart. Gave him a thumbs up. And drove away.
As I drove home I asked myself, why couldn’t I just wait? The car next to me was actually about to leave, though I didn’t realize that when I honked my horn.
Why couldn’t I just be patient? I asked myself.
Because I’m tired of a lifetime of always being pleasing and patient, dealing with men leaving their grocery carts and their airport dropoff cars in the way of everyone else, listening to friends who talk 80% of the time about themselves and their crises, and not saying what’s on my mind.
I’ve always been outspoken and energetic and worked to achieve my goals without making myself into a martyr. But I did that with a veneer of accommodation, nurturance, and understanding — a veneer I can’t seem to conjure up anymore.
Scherr describes some science behind what’s happening to me:
For decades, your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain responsible for executive function, social behavior, and impulse control—has been working overtime. It’s been monitoring social cues, calculating risks, suppressing authentic responses, and managing everyone else’s emotional experience.
This is exhausting work. And it turns out, it’s unsustainable.
Research in neuroscience shows that as we age, the brain undergoes a process called synaptic pruning. Neural pathways that aren’t essential get trimmed away. Your brain is essentially Marie Kondo-ing itself, keeping what serves you and discarding what doesn’t.
And all those neural pathways dedicated to hypervigilant people-pleasing? They’re often first on the chopping block.
Dr. Louann Brizendine, neuropsychiatrist and author of “The Female Brain,” explains that women’s brains are particularly wired for social harmony and caregiving in the first half of life—driven partly by estrogen and oxytocin. But as estrogen levels shift in perimenopause and beyond, this intense drive to please and nurture others begins to diminish.
That’s probably why a “Karen” is a thing — because a woman at midlife is ready to stop making nice and start saying what she thinks, just at the same time that everyone has no more use for her. She’s not nubile and sexy. She’s not going to have babies. She’s not easy to order around in the workplace. She’s tired and cranky and not having it anymore.
This isn’t really a plan just for the week but a plan for my life: to accept and even celebrate this transformation I’m undergoing, as uncomfortable as it is.
Scherr writes that what you gain when you lose your filter and your people-pleasing drive is authenticity (to let your true self shine through), time (because you don’t have to do bullshit you don’t want to anymore), clarity (because you stop covering up the truth), and real relationships (with people who aren’t looking to get something from you but rather just want to be in relationship with you).
There are many good things this midlife transformation can bring but it also can arrive with unpleasant and sometimes painful consequences like having to bear people’s anger, losing long-standing relationships, and sensing that other people consider you bitter or angry or unreasonable.
Today, besides the relief of getting through the first of the important 2025 holidays, I am feeling relief to know that the temperamental changes I’m experiencing are something many women at midlife undergo.