I’m not sure whether it was midlife, menopaws, grief, or some unholy combination of all three, but somewhere along the way, my supply of F’s became dangerously low.
For most of my life, I had plenty to spare. I worried about what people thought of me, whether people liked me, whether I was saying or doing the wrong thing, whether I was disappointing someone, and, God forbid, whether somebody somewhere was looking at me and thinking, “Who does she think she is?”
Those voices haven’t magically disappeared, and I don’t want to pretend they have. I still have my own little collection of Negative Nellies living rent-free in my head, feeding on whatever fear or anxiety happens to be available that day. The difference is that I don’t automatically believe them anymore, and when they get particularly loud, I’m much more likely to tell them to shut the fuck up because I have things I want to do.
For years, I said I wanted to write, but eventually I stopped just thinking and talking about it and actually started putting my stories out there for other people to read. Of course I want people to like them. I’m not that evolved. I love hearing that something I wrote made someone laugh, touched them, or reminded them of something in their own life. But if somebody is sitting at home reading my stories with a Nellie Oleson face and wondering, “Who does she think she is?” I’m learning to let them wonder while I keep writing.
That same shift gave me the courage to run for city council in the little town I love because I want to see it flourish for years to come, and I wanted to be willing to do more than sit on the sidelines and have opinions about it. Serving means making decisions, and making decisions means somebody isn’t always going to agree with you. I care about what people think, I listen, and I try to understand perspectives that may be different from my own, but I can’t make every decision based on whether everybody will like me afterward. I can only gather the information I have, listen to the people I represent, and make the best decision I can on behalf of the people who trusted me with their vote.
Maybe the biggest change, though, has been in how I feel about myself.
For years, I carried a tremendous amount of shame and social anxiety because of my weight. I worried about photographs, clothes, walking into rooms, and what other people saw when they looked at me. I became very good at dressing to hide the parts of myself I didn’t like, and somewhere along the way I became pretty good at hiding me, too. I kept thinking confidence would arrive later—after I lost the weight, after I looked better, after I became whatever version of myself I thought deserved to walk into a room without worrying about what everybody else thought.
Then my son got married, and I wore a dress I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to wear five years ago. Instead of spending the day tugging at it, worrying about photographs, or wondering whether someone was noticing the parts of me I used to try so hard to hide, I watched my son marry the woman he loves and allowed myself to be completely present for it.
I danced with my son, my daughter and daughter-in-law, my husband, my besties, and my family. I laughed, celebrated, got in the pictures, and spent the night right in the middle of everything instead of watching from the edges. I wasn’t thinner, younger, or suddenly transformed into some different version of myself, but I have never felt more beautiful than I did that day. Instead of worrying about how I looked or what other people might be thinking about me, I was completely present in the moment, focused on the people who mattered most to me and celebrating one of the most important days of my son’s life.
And I really, really experienced the joy of it at a time in my life when I needed joy more than I ever had before. My head and my heart were already trying to balance grief and joy on the same set of scales—missing my dad terribly while celebrating this beautiful new beginning for my son and his wife—and there simply wasn’t room for me to hold the weight of other people’s opinions, too.
So I didn’t. I danced.
That’s the part of this whole zero-F’s-given thing I didn’t understand when I was younger. It isn’t about not caring, because I care deeply about my family, my friends, my community, the stories I write, and the people who read them. I care about being kind and doing the right thing, and I care about becoming healthier and stronger so I can hopefully stick around long enough to be a fun, active grandmother someday.
I’ve just become much more selective about what gets access to my limited supply of F’s.
And before anyone mistakes this for my official announcement that I no longer give an F about anyone or anything, let me clarify something: I’ve already worried about whether writing an entire essay about my limited supply of F’s might offend somebody, so clearly zero isn’t an accurate count.
Let’s call it a carefully curated collection.
Grief probably had more to do with this shift than anything else. Losing my dad changed the way I think about time. It isn’t that I didn’t know those moments with him were precious while I was living them. I did. I loved fishing with my dad, our conversations, our holidays together, and knowing I could stop by and he would be there. What I didn’t understand was how finite all of it was.
I never knew which fishing trip would be our last, which Christmas would be our last, or which conversation would be one I’d someday wish I could have again. You live those moments believing there will be more of them, until one day there aren’t. And that has changed the way I think about the time I still have with the people I love.
I don’t know how many Christmases, weddings, Sunday dinners, dog walks, nights on the dance floor, mornings drinking my tea on the deck, or afternoons spent simply being with the people I love are ahead of me. None of us does.
When I really let myself understand that, worrying about whether somebody thinks I’m too fat, too loud, too opinionated, too ambitious, too much, or just plain ridiculous starts to feel like a terrible waste of something I now know is incredibly valuable—time.
I’ve already spent too much of mine worrying about what somebody else thinks about me, and I don’t want to spend the time I have left doing it.
Grief didn’t magically make me fearless, but it changed my perspective on what I was afraid of. When you’ve lost someone as important to you as a parent and felt the kind of pain that comes with that loss, you realize that someone else’s opinion of you could never hurt in the same way. I know what real heartbreak feels like now, and somehow that has taken some of the power away from all those things I used to be so afraid of.
Someone might not like what I write, might disagree with a decision I make, or might look at a picture of me and judge my weight, my clothes, or anything else they feel entitled to have an opinion about. Maybe it will still sting sometimes because I’m human, but it can’t devastate me the way I once imagined it could.
There is something incredibly freeing about realizing that.
Grief has taken a lot from me, and I certainly wouldn’t have chosen this particular way of learning the lesson, but it has also made me much less willing to hand someone else’s opinion the power to determine how I feel about myself or how fully I live my life.
Because while I’m standing against the wall worrying about how I look, I’m missing the dance. While I’m worrying about whether somebody thinks I have any business calling myself a writer, I’m not writing. While I’m afraid someone might disagree with me, I’m not using my voice for something I care about.
That’s what midlife has given me—not some magical confidence where fear, anxiety, and insecurity disappear, but the realization that I can hear all of them and still do the thing anyway. And I don’t think I’m the only one who has spent years waiting to feel confident enough to fully participate in my own life.
Maybe you’ve been waiting until you lose the weight to wear the dress or get in the picture, or maybe you keep telling yourself you’ll try the thing you’ve always wanted to do when you’re more confident. Maybe you’re worried somebody will think you’re too old, too loud, too much, not qualified enough, or completely ridiculous for even trying. Maybe you’ve spent years making sure everybody else is comfortable while quietly talking yourself out of something you really want because your own Negative Nellie keeps asking, “Who do you think you are?”
I’m starting to think the better question is, “Who do you want to be with whatever time you have left?”
So wear the damn dress and get in the picture! Write the story you’ve been afraid to write, take the class, apply for the job, dance with your kids, go somewhere by yourself, say no when you mean no and yes when you really want to say yes. Whatever your thing is, stop quietly talking yourself out of it while you wait to become some future version of yourself who is finally brave enough to begin.
You don’t have to stop being afraid first, and that may be the biggest thing I’m finally figuring out. The Negative Nellies can complain from the back seat—mine certainly still do—but they don’t get to drive anymore.
I have stories to write, people to love, a little town to serve, dogs to walk, places to go, and a whole lot more dancing left to do. If someone is standing on the sidelines with a Nellie Oleson face wondering who I think I am, at this point in my life, I think I finally know.
I’m me, and I like who I am.
And if you’re not in that place yet, I hope you can get there. Because it’s a good place to be.
Anyway—Off We Go. 
The dogs want a walk, I still have stories to tell, and I’m saving my F’s for things that really deserve them.
If you found a little bit of yourself somewhere in this story, follow Anyway—Off We Go. And if it made you think of someone else, share it with them. I’ve still got plenty of stories to tell.
© 2026 Erica Shoemaker | Anyway—Off We Go™
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