50 and Unfiltered

A few weeks ago, I went to a new movie by a director whose previous films I've liked. I expected to like this movie too, but it spent a lot of time begging me to fall in love with it, which naturally is a recipe for me to hate it. Overall I found it "cringingly precious," as if this director had fallen and hit his head, and had instantly become an unlikely adoring fan of those horrible Thomas Kincaide paintings, the visual equivalent of eating a dozen heavily frosted cupcakes. As the credits were rolling, I turned to my friend and said something I normally would have left unspoken, reigned in by my filter of self consciousness. "She sure has a lot of moles," I said loudly in reference to the lead actress. It's the kind of thing I can only imagine a crotchety old lady would say after sitting through a movie she didn't really like.

This isn't the only time I've knowingly ignored my filter and just blurted out what I was thinking. But it's something I've been doing more frequently. I know the type of thing I *should* say, but I end up choosing to say the unfiltered thought instead, not just to be funny, but because it's the truth -- unvarnished, but honest. 

Like nudists and swingers, people without a filter are both fascinating and horrifying to me. Most of the filterless people I've known have been older women (think Kathie Lee Gifford), although I've known young people without filters too. For American women, middle age is often the first time we practice taking off the filter on a regular basis. Maybe all that practice without a filter in middle age is what leads to all the old women who've permanently lost theirs.

The older I get, the less tolerance I have for bullshit, which is why I've become so weary of politics and why I grew so weary of my marriage. Filtering oneself -- if you end up not saying what you really want to say -- is just another form of bullshit. Now having hit 50, I'm venturing into the second half of my life armed with a very limited capacity for bullshit and my big mouth.

Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride.