There Are Things I Simply Don’t Want to Do Anymore

For most of my adult life, I thought not wanting to do something was the beginning of a negotiation. I couldn’t simply say I didn’t want to go. I needed a reason, preferably a respectable one. I needed to be tired, busy, sick, previously committed or perhaps awaiting an important delivery that required my presence at home during the very specific hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. “I don’t want to” seemed like the sort of excuse available only to children, difficult people and women who had somehow escaped the lifelong orientation program on being pleasant. I have become increasingly suspicious of this arrangement.

There are things I simply don’t want to do anymore. I don’t want to attend every event I’m invited to. I don’t want to stay somewhere for three hours because leaving after ninety minutes might look rude. I don’t want to buy uncomfortable shoes and then spend an evening pretending my feet aren’t being slowly murdered. I don’t want to maintain conversations I don’t enjoy merely because somebody else appears determined to keep having them.

None of these preferences makes me oppressed. I don’t need to “set a boundary” with the shoes. Nobody has violated my emotional safety by inviting me to dinner. Sometimes nothing is wrong, nobody has behaved badly and there is no deeper psychological issue requiring examination. I simply don’t want to do it, and that distinction has become increasingly interesting to me as I’ve gotten older.

When Did Preference Become Such a Weak Argument?

Women are remarkably good at producing supporting documentation for our decisions. If we decline an invitation, we explain why. If we leave early, we mention tomorrow’s schedule. If we don’t want to take something on, we provide evidence that our existing workload makes the request unreasonable. Apparently, somewhere along the way, many of us learned that our own preference was not quite enough.

I understand where some of that comes from. We live among other people, and being considerate matters. I don’t want to become the woman who reaches midlife, announces that she is finally “choosing herself” and proceeds to become completely insufferable. Other people have feelings. Commitments matter. Relationships occasionally require us to do things we would not have selected as our first choice for a Saturday afternoon.

But there is an enormous amount of territory between being selfish and treating every preference you have as negotiable.

I think I spent years asking questions in the wrong order. Instead of asking whether I wanted to do something, I would ask whether someone would be disappointed if I didn’t. Would they think I was rude? Would I hurt their feelings? Would my absence be noticed? Was my reason good enough? By the time I got around to asking what I actually wanted, the decision had usually been made.

Age has not completely cured me of this. I can still overthink a perfectly ordinary no. I can still imagine a tribunal of disappointed people gathering after my absence to discuss my deteriorating character. But I’m getting better at noticing when I’m doing it, and increasingly I find myself wondering why everyone else’s possible reaction gets a vote before I do.

Some Things Really Are Obligations

Obviously, adulthood cannot be organized entirely around what we feel like doing. I rarely wake up consumed by a passionate desire to deal with insurance, clean something unpleasant or make an appointment I’ve been avoiding. There are bills to pay, people to care for and promises to keep. There are times when someone we love needs us and “I’d really rather stay home in my pajamas” is not the response the moment deserves.

That’s part of being a grown-up, and I don’t think midlife grants us some magical exemption from responsibility. If anything, by this age most of us understand responsibility rather well. We have spent decades working, caring, showing up, remembering birthdays, keeping appointments, handling crises and doing what needed to be done whether we particularly wanted to or not.

Maybe that’s precisely why I’ve become more interested in separating genuine obligation from habit. Some things must be done. Other things are simply things I have always done, things people have come to expect from me or things I agreed to before it occurred to me that declining was an available option. Those categories are not the same, although I have frequently treated them as if they were. There is something liberating about realizing that not everything placed in front of you automatically becomes an assignment.

I’m Becoming More Particular

I used to think becoming more particular as I got older might be a bad thing. I didn’t want to become rigid or difficult. I pictured some future version of myself complaining about restaurant temperatures, refusing to try anything new and becoming deeply invested in the exact location of the thermostat. I still don’t want to become that woman, although I reserve the right to revisit the thermostat issue.

What I’m discovering instead is that being particular can simply mean knowing yourself better. I know more about what drains me now. I know which kinds of gatherings I enjoy and which ones make me start calculating an acceptable departure time before I’ve taken off my coat. I know which friendships leave me feeling better and which interactions make me wonder why I volunteered for another round.

I also know that I like quiet more than I once admitted. I like having time that nobody has claimed. I like being able to change my mind about what I’m doing with an afternoon. I like people very much, but I have finally accepted that liking people and wanting to be around them constantly are two entirely different things. None of this is revolutionary. That may be what I like about it.

It isn’t a declaration that I’m taking back my power. It isn’t a dramatic reinvention. It’s simply becoming more willing to notice my own preferences and less inclined to treat them as character flaws.

The Strange Freedom of Not Needing a Better Excuse

There is a peculiar freedom in realizing that sometimes you don’t need a compelling explanation. You can be invited somewhere by perfectly lovely people to do a perfectly pleasant thing and still prefer to stay home. You can appreciate being asked without accepting. You can decide that an activity everyone else seems to enjoy simply isn’t for you.

For years, I thought every no required a corresponding because. No, because I have another commitment. No, because I’m exhausted. No, because something came up. The explanation seemed to soften the rejection and reassure everyone that I would absolutely be there if circumstances had not cruelly intervened.

Sometimes circumstances haven’t intervened. Sometimes I just don’t want to go.

That sentence still feels slightly scandalous to me, which probably tells me something about how rarely I allowed myself to say it.

There is also kindness in being honest with ourselves about what we enjoy. When we repeatedly force ourselves into things we resent, the resentment doesn’t always stay politely contained inside us. We show up irritated. We count the minutes. We become annoyed with people who may have done nothing more offensive than believe us when we said yes. A more honest no can occasionally be kinder than a resentful yes.

I Still Go Sometimes

None of this means I have decided never to do anything I don’t want to do. Sometimes I go because it matters to someone I love. Sometimes I go because I know I’ll be glad I did once I get there. Sometimes I go because my desire to stay home is really inertia, and I know myself well enough to recognize the difference. And sometimes I go because I still haven’t quite figured out how to say no.

I’m not presenting myself as a woman who has achieved Enlightened Midlife Detachment and now floats serenely above social expectation. I can still agree to something and immediately wonder why I did that. I can still stay longer than I want because I’m worried leaving will seem rude. I can still spend an unreasonable amount of time composing a two-sentence decline that sounds warm, grateful, regretful, friendly and absolutely unavailable.

But I’m getting better.

I’m learning that my preferences deserve to be part of the decision even when they don’t get the final say. I’m learning that I don’t need to turn every unwanted invitation into a moral dilemma. I’m learning that there is a difference between disappointing someone and doing something wrong, and I wish I had understood that distinction much earlier.

Maybe that is one of the quieter gifts of getting older. We begin to see how many rules we have been following without ever consciously agreeing to them. We notice how much energy we have spent trying to be easy, agreeable, available and appropriately enthusiastic. Then, little by little, we start deciding which of those rules still make sense.

That idea runs through much of I Pee When I Sneeze and Other Midlife Observations. Yes, there are changing bodies, indignities, surprises and plenty to laugh about. But there is also something else happening in midlife: the gradual realization that we may finally know ourselves well enough to stop treating every preference as something that needs to be defended.

“I don’t want to” should not make every decision for us. A life built entirely around personal preference would become very small and probably rather selfish. But after spending so many years barely being allowed into the conversation, perhaps what we want deserves a vote.

And some days, that vote may be enough to keep the uncomfortable shoes in the closet, decline the invitation without inventing a respiratory illness, and spend Saturday afternoon doing absolutely nothing that requires an explanation.