I work on an almost daily basis with people who give their time for free to educate people-- children mostly-- about nature. As you would expect many of these people are elderly, or at least late middle-aged. Older people have more money, stability, and time to spare, so they are the ones who volunteer the most. Working with so many more elderly people than I ever have before, I have learned a lot about myself and also, a lot about old people. From what I have gathered I have formed a theory: all women, at some point in their lives, go from normal to completely. fucking. crazy.
They all manifest this insanity in their own unique way, and it is certainly not always negative. A common theme in all of their craziness though, is the inability to know when not to say things. Or rather, I believe that they all know they shouldn't say these things, they just have somehow abandoned the desire to spare any one's feelings. They have abandoned the social barriers that help people work together and really, they abandon social order in general. They all become extreme versions of what they always were. One volunteer is a caricature of an outspoken know-it-all, another a paranoid, critical banshee, another a frog-pant wearing, spoiled valley-girl. Others sink lower into their own inability to comprehend things-- wandering into formal programs, breaking rules put in place to keep animals from getting hurt, or even explaining sex to young children.
What is wrong with these people? Am I doomed to lose my mind as well? Or am I looking at a minuscule sample of women? A minority group that is interested in outdoorsy things and teaching people? But I would fall into that group as well! Does that mean I am doomed to call people out when they're wrong and criticise people who are just coming into their own? I don't want to go into that world. It seems so lonely and full of negativity.
Or is it a right-- that one earns in time? That you gain after hearing your own elders express themselves, no matter what, for years? Perhaps it is actually quite wonderful... and that's why all women eventually give in and fully accept who they are- despite the fact that they will break a few social rules.
And why don't men seem to expose themselves in the same way? I work with a lot of older men as well, and they never strike me with the same level of oddities. Is it because I am a girl? That they can't forge the same kind of matronly relationship that the old biddies do?
I don't know the answers to the questions, and I'm sure you don't either. However, ask yourself this: Are you a crazy old woman? Are you married to one? Do you know one?
Why do you think women reach a point in their life when they go out onto their own limb-- for better or for worse?
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