The fictional character I relate to most in this season of life….

Apparently, I have entered my Ouiser Boudreaux era. Yes, that Ouiser from Steel Magnolias… sharp-tongued, honest as a cast-iron skillet, and just Southern enough to say the thing everybody else is thinking but is too polite to let leave their mouth.

I was thinking about this this morning when I heard her voice in my head, clear as a church bell and twice as judgmental. Ouiser has a way of offering up life, mood, and world commentary like she is handing you a casserole… hot, practical, and probably a little dangerous if you are not careful.

There is one line of hers that has been rattling around in my mind lately: “I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years.” Honestly, I feel that in my bones. The last ten years alone have had the emotional mileage of 40. If time really does fly, then lately it has been flying coach, delayed, with a crying baby two rows back. I am also sure I have raised two of the most ungrateful children, spoiled by me, I am sure. And married deadbeats too. I am in the same situation, no desire to try the dating or man thing again…

And then there is the other part of Ouiser I find myself growing into with alarming comfort… the old Southern woman energy. Not old in the helpless sense. Old in the “I have opinions, compression socks, and no patience for foolishness” sense. Old in the “if I want to wear a funny-looking hat and ugly clothes while growing vegetables in the dirt, that is between me, the Lord, and my garden.

There is something freeing about that. Ouiser does not ask permission to be herself. She does not soften every edge so the world can hold her more comfortably. She has lived, she has noticed, and she has reached the point where pretending to be endlessly cheerful feels like a waste of good daylight.

I can relate. Some days, I do not want to be inspirational. I do not want to sparkle. I want to sit on the porch, squint at the world, and make one brutally accurate comment before going back to my coffee. If that is a character flaw, at least it is one with good timing.

Still, what I admire most about Ouiser is not just the crankiness. It is the honesty underneath it. She may be gruff, but she is not fake. She may complain, but she shows up. She may sound like thunder, but there is usually rain behind it—something real, something needed, something that makes things grow.

So maybe this era is not about becoming bitter. Maybe it is about becoming seasoned. Maybe it is about learning to say what we mean, wear what we want, plant what we can, and stop apologizing for having survived long enough to develop partialities.

If I am turning into Ouiser Boudreaux, then so be it. I will take the wit, the grit, the porch-sitting wisdom, and the occasional bad mood. I may even take the ugly hat as a challenge. After all, I do not make the rules. I am just learning as I go how to walk through them…