I have reached the point in my life where I am finally – FINALLY – concerned enough about sun damage to wear a hat when I go outside. It took awhile. I blame the delay in part on my dislike of the way I look in a hat. I just look… dumb. My ears flop out of the sides of the cap in a weird and mildly uncomfortable way. Plus my head seems like it’s a little too small for most ball caps? I don’t know. I have friends who look very cute and sporty in ball caps, but I am not one of those people.
My husband agrees with my assessment, and mocks me mercilessly anytime I don a cap. Don’t even get me started on anything floppy.
But I have reached a pleasing milestone, which is that I don’t care. I wear shorts with my thick, cellulite-spangled thighs hanging out for all to see, and I have a ball cap on my head, and a fanny pack around my waist. Basically Peak Mom, but not, like, Cute Mom, who could get away with wearing that exact same outfit while somehow looking chic and stylish. Cute Mom I am not. No, Peak Mom as in the stereotype that sitcoms and SNL poke fun at.
But I don’t care. This outfit is practical. It provides maximum sun protection. I can carry my phone and keys and a mask in the fanny pack.
I have heard mythologies about this magical point in adulthood when you stop caring about things that were once desperately important to you. This is the one area where I have achieved the Don’t Care attitude.
Well, okay. I also no longer care whether people think I am weird/political/hysterical for wearing a mask in public. So two areas of Don’t Careitude.
I am eager to unlock new things I don’t care about. In no particular order, I am hopeful that someday, I will no longer care so deeply about:
- My body shape/size/weight. I am making baby steps toward this one.
- Whether doctors think I am asking too many questions, leading me to leave one or several topics I wanted to discuss off my list.
- Small injustices – like getting home only to find that the restaurant didn’t include the sauce I paid $0.75 for… or having someone misunderstand the lanes at the bank, and cut in front of me at the ATM… or having someone cut me off in traffic.
- Errors I made and awkward things I said literally decades ago.
- What my parents think of my life decisions.
- Whether I am “using” my education.
- What people think of my “career” choice.
- How my house/clothing/car/cleanliness compare to those of others.
- Whether I talked too much/enough and/or said the right things and/or sounded stupid at [fill in the blank].
- Leaving the house with mascara on.
- How I look whilst exercising.
Based on the women I know who are older… there’s hope for some a very few of these, and not for others.
In what areas have you achieved Don’t Care perfection? And in which areas are you hopeful to achieve this state of being at some future point?
My head is also too small for baseball hats! I literally can’t even do up the Velcro tight enough to stay on my head if there is a light breeze! They should definitely make different sizes!
They do! If you haven’t tried a women’s specific fit, try that. Game changer for me. Or, try a kid’s size.
I would not have been caught dead in public in public in leggings. After seeing women in Walmart I think I probably look good. Only wear black.
Suzanne, I love this so much. All of it. ALL OF IT! Also, I bet you look cute in your practical outfit. I don’t like wearing baseball caps either, I do have a floppy hat which can only be worn when it’s not super windy, which is a rare occurrence. I often wear it on sunny vacations. IT IS HUGE. It probably should have its own postal code. But it keeps my face (and shoulders, HUGE) covered, so great.
Anyway, I love that you’re making these steps towards not caring, and I share a few of those things on your list. In a month or so I will see SOMEONE so I’m gearing up for the comments about my “job” and “not using my degrees,” reminding myself that said SOMEONE is not working, doesn’t have a degree, and is just projecting on me. However, being calm in the moment is a whole different thing. Well.
Ugh ugh ugh good LUCK Nicole!!!! It is so hard! Hoping you can shed the comments like a duck sheds water!
If you can, in the moment, refrain from pointing out those exact facts to SOMEONE, you are a better woman than I.
I hate how I look in hats as well – and it’s strange because I have an identical twin sister who looks fetching in hats! Small facial differences really affect how hats look. I did wear baseball caps one summer to protect my skin and scalp – i found that the cute straw hat I bought itched like the dickens -and a very dorky visor that actually worked to protect my eyes at the pool.
I don’t care about what I wear in public, for asking questions to get what I need, and what my house looks like. I haven’t worn makeup in years – I would like to but I feel like I look a clown. I guess makeup techniques that worked in one’s teens are not so successful 30+ years later? The older I get the less I care – and it’s very liberating.
However, I do think about stupid things I said years ago (why can’t I forget them?) and my weight.
Also, I worked outside the home part time for most of the years I’ve been a mom, and I either get “Why don’t you work full time” and “Why aren’t you a stay at home mom” criticisms. So with some people, there’s no winning. time to develop a thick skin!
The “don’t care” stage is so freeing! I hit it once I turned 50 and realized I was basically invisible to everyone. I still remember going with my daughter and grandson to the beach (I wore a tank top and tennis skirt into the very shallow end of Lake Michigan). Normally I would be comparing myself to everyone and freaking out about the huge lumps of flesh on the inside of my knees, which don’t go away no matter how much exercise I do or weight I lose.
On this day, I Didn’t Care. I played with my grandson, enjoyed the sun and cool water, and knew that my appearance did not register with anyone.
This has extended beyond my appearance lately – I pretty much don’t worry about any of my usual things. I know I’ll either figure it out or it won’t matter in short time. Maybe this is a product of living through some crazy stuff in my 57 years?!
The don’t-care-ittude is a wonderful perk of getting older, IMO. I am 53 and have a good list of things I don’t give an F about anymore. Clothes, makeup, hair, many of my choices. Then again, I have a tendency toward feeling that way in general!
For small headed folks interested in ‘baseball caps’- check out headsweats brand caps. Super lightweight, super adjustable- they are my go-to when out in windy conditions and even stay on in beach winds.
Oh, I am entering the I Don’t Care years and it’s great! I am absolutely not there on some things, but if I want to wear a sleeveless shirt, I’m not worrying about how floppy my upper arms are. Someone thinks knitting in public is dorky? Well, I love it. I just care so much less what others think of me. After all, how much attention is anyone really paying to me? Not much!
I don’t care about our yard. I really don’t. If the neighbors want to judge because we don’t mow enough or the weeds are too thick or whatever, I honestly have no cares left. I don’t care if my arms jiggle and the cellulite on my legs show when I wear a dress – it’s 90 degrees and I am cooler this way.
But maybe someday I won’t care about those awkward phone calls I had or how I said the wrong thing in that Zoom interview three months ago or that time I waved at someone in a car thinking it was someone else and it was a stranger.
LOL!!! Dying laughing. I think the waving at someone who is not actually waving at you is SO awkward and embarrassing!! 😂😂 I have done this so many times!!
I would like to be thin like I used to be but I’m feeling mostly OK about the change in my shape. It seemed to happen at about 60. The pandemic didn’t help. I don’t care much about how I dress these days. I used to enjoy getting dressed up and now I live in leggings and tee shirts/sweatshirts.
What a great post and so much food for thought.
I vacillate between not caring and CARING VERY DEEPLY about things…sometimes the same thing doesn’t bother me one day and the next feels like the end of the world.
All the things you list are issues for me. Weight/body image for sure. And you talking about not getting the sauce you paid $0.75 for – this sort of thing is SUCH a hang-up for me. I am always trying to maximize everything and I tend to have a single level of response (say a sale item didn’t ring up on sale, but it was only $1 difference – I will STEW about this the whole way home. Why? I can afford the $1.).
I am trying to just accept I want to feel comfortable in my clothes, but my thighs – specifically – make me feel soooo self-conscious. This summer I’ve been working hard to just wear what feels good, full stop.
I mostly don’t care about our vehicle – it’s old and always needs to be vacuumed.
Wow. That was literally all I could think of. I definitely care too much about things that don’t deserve to be “cared” about!
I am starting to Not Care about some things, and it feels so nice; I am wondering if the perimenopausal hormone shift is contributing. Sometimes I sense that one or more of my children does care about that thing, and/or that they feel I SHOULD care, and I almost feel a surge of joy at how silly it seems to care about, for example, wearing pajama pants to drop them off at school, when NO ONE is going to see me and EVEN IF THEY DID they would NOT CARE EITHER. But I too still have so many things I DO care about, and so I hope there IS hope for caring less and less! I have heard some promising things about Being An Old Lady.
Oh the hat situation. I WANT to be able to wear a hat but I just can’t. Particularly, after ditching straightening my hair all the time (this is one area I definitely have the Don’t Careitude about – I LOVE that term). If I plop a hat (particularly a baseball hat) on top of this head; I look like Dustin from Stranger Things.
I do hear that the Don’t Careitude is a good thing about aging. And I can’t wait. But currently, dying my hair? Still care.
I love this post. I don’t mind how I look in hats, but my VERY thin hair CANNOT recover if I remove said hat and plan to attend anything unless I have time to shower, so hats are not my friend.
I still cringe about a few things I said or did when I was younger. Ugh. To quote Elsa, let it go!
I would say that I no longer care what my in laws think or say. I’ve moved on. I’ve had to share with my husband that he is no longer allowed to tell me to not speak up when something they do or say troubles me/offends me. That is not healthy. It only took 25 plus years of marriage to come to that conclusion.
I also don’t care about makeup. I care about my weight, but mainly because I like my clothes and I don’t want to buy new stuff. I also work out super hard, so I would appreciate it if my body would work with me there.
I also don’t care about what people friend request, or who they are with on social media. I’m a lazy/inattentive Facebook user, so I don’t bother liking things or commenting most of the time.
I’m almost 69. I have a family wedding this summer, and as I fretted to my sister I said, ‘I came to the conclusion that no one would care what I look like’ and she (10 years younger) said ‘we are two generations past where anyone would look at us’ and while that was REALLY GREAT it was also REALLY ANNOYING because I’m old, not invisible. Except that, in reality, I am.
The only thing I really don’t care about is wearing makeup. I am totally fine leaving the house without it, I do not care who sees me. I still care about my gray hair, and still dying it.
I say to others that I don’t care what I look like in a bathing suit, and I mostly don’t… but internally I still fret about it. So that needs to change. This week I was in FL with a bunch of my coworkers and we went on a boat in bathing suits (nearly all women, of all ages), and it was really nice that none of us had to care! No “fs” to give, we kept saying.
I’ve never worn makeup (except at Halloween), stopped shaving my legs when I was 19, never considered dying my slowly graying hair. I was somewhat (not completely) at peace about being heavy, but I’ve lost weight because I had to change how I ate when I got diabetes and now I feel weird about feeling good about watching the number of the scale go down.
For me Don’t Care Perfection = not caring what people think about my working life choices, my lack of makeup, my indifference to wearing high heels, my refusal to watch violent TV shows or movies, and my decorating vibe. Many f*cks are no longer given.
Ahh, entering the ‘don’t care’ stages are very freeing. The older I get, the less I care. But I still need to let go of more things. Top of the list: I want to not care about what my parents think or care less, and I want to care less about my body/weight.
I wish I liked myself in more hats. I only like one baseball cap that I have owned for probably 8 years, maybe longer. I should find it in another color or maybe 5! I have a really narrow face and also a small head, but it fits me so well. It’s a Brooks brand, if that helps – it might work for you!
I love a good baseball hat! I wear them all the time, even though I don’t know if I even look good in them. But I like that they protect my scalp and keep the sun out of my face.
I love this “don’t care” list! There is something so freeing about getting older and caring so much less about what other people think, isn’t there? Some things I don’t care about: how much I weigh and what my body looks like, how pale I am even in the middle of a Florida summer (paleness > skin cancer), what other people think of my life decisions and being single/childless well into my thirties, and movies and being OKAY that I’m never going to be the one who is always watching the latest movies.
I never enjoyed hats either but this one changed my mind and I’ve been wearing it for over 15 years in the FL sun. It’s cotton, can be hand-washed, comes in ten+ colors, has a wide brim that can be worn up or down and has an adjustable headband that is remarkably wind-proof. It’s under $40, is widely sold online and usually lasts 1-2 years depending upon how sweaty you get. I’m often stopped to ask what it is and where to get it and most of the female members of my family also wear it now. The wide brim offers much more sun protecton than the average baseball hat. I would buy it somewhere other than Amazon, however, as counterfeits are common and the fakes don’t fit or wear as well.
Scala wide-brimmed classic cotton sun hat.https://www.hatcountry.com/scala-classic-cotton-sun-hat-womens-sun-hat.html
I agree with you on the “don’t care” list. Mine includes not caring if people don’t like reasonable boundaries.
Not caring about anything other people might think is the ultimate goal, am I right? So any step towards a longer Don’t Careitude is great.
I definitely have things that I don’t care about any more (what other people think about my life choices), things I go back and forth about (if I have a few more wrinkles or not) and things that I am still working on (hitting certain milestones in life).