Grumpy Old Woman

 I have reached an age where I can qualify for the title of Grumpy Old Woman. I get irritated by all sorts of things, rude people, motorists who jump traffic lights, sales assistants who don't know the first thing about what they are selling, the list goes on for a while.

If I am honest, the irritation goes deeper, it is part of the journey of the soul.

We have all seen elderly ladies dressed up in clothes that are considered inappropriate for their age, too much make up, too much perfume, too much bling. Just too much, too much of everything. We scoff. We think people should act their age. Now I am at that age I wonder what that means. The other day I stood at a display of pretty earrings and wondered what they would look like on me, that it might be fun to wear them. Then I walk away. Not for me, not now. I remember.

In Psychological Types Jung warns against becoming the professor who constantly reminds us of what he was, what he used to be, no longer is. People get bored. But Jung wrote Psychological Types when he was still young, after the devastating break with Freud. I can relate, been there done that, got the tee-shirt..

The end of the journey is to become what you might be - it's the journey of a lifetime. And to those who tell you it's all about the journey, not the destination, invite them to reflect on their own journey, and whether they have really, really, been busy with the journey. Everything around us tells us that life is about the destination, where you end up. Perhaps not consciously. But look at everything that entices us, envelops us, occupies us. When we work, it's about the destination. Getting somewhere, being someone, accumulating wealth, making sure the kids are safe, building a home. That's the first half of life.

Even happiness is a destination, something to be looked for and arrived at. Finding happiness at work isn't part of the deal, even if present day clichés tell you it is, but you try to find it anyway. You're lucky if you have a job at all, and extremely lucky if you enjoy it at least most of the time.

In this sequence of Destinations we grow, learn, change develop, morph. We become ourSelves. Not our Ideal Selves, just ourselves, nothing grand. We grow old and our End starts taking shape. Destinations have kind of run out, there is only one that looms large on the horizon - the end of everything.

It's hard to describe the pain that goes with the movement into the zone of the setting sun. Physical and mental, everything aches. The face you see in the mirror is not one you recognise, you start looking like your mother, father, grandparents, you recognise their gestures in your own. So do other people. So, in this journey you have moved from being someone who is to being someone ho was, from someone who can to someone who can't, from someone who pays her way to someone who needs help. Not that you want to. It just happens. You wince if someone shakes your hand too tightly, for too long. Your persona adapts. There is an assumption that you don't know things, that somehow the moment in which you are living now has passed you by.

So, yes, I am a Grumpy Old Woman, my current stage of metamorphosis. My butterfly transformations have been and gone, and I have become what we are all destined to be: old.