In Defense of Karen

After dropping off my husband at work yesterday, I pulled into the drive-thru at Hardee’s to get a drink and a biscuit. When I got to the window, it slid open a crack and gloved fingers reached through. I handed over some dollar bills and then a handful of change that represented the rest of the total. I heard a voice say, “Oh my lord,” as a sullen woman took my money. Then the window snapped shut. I felt a flare of rage. I just wanted my breakfast and to pay for it with the money I had on hand. I felt like the cashier was looking down on me for no good reason, and that feeling intensified when she handed me my breakfast without a word or a smile. I said to the closing window, “Thank you,” which went unacknowledged, not even a glance in my direction. “THANK YOU SO MUCH!” I yelled at the unsuspecting building. No one seemed to hear me.

“I’m going to go in there and complain,” I thought, ripping the wrapper off my straw. And then I realized, “Oh my god. I’m Karen.”

According to my 14-year-old, the definition of a Karen is an entitled middle-aged white woman who is always asking to speak to the manager. There must be a lot of us out there to garner our own meme, but in our defense, we’re just trying to come to terms with a shipping container’s worth of changes in and around us. A woman in her fifties starts to look old, and with that change in appearance comes the realization that the season’s passes of youth and beauty have expired. No one’s looking at us anymore. No one wants to do us little favors. We start reflecting back and realizing all the times men went out of their way for us because we were young, or thin, or had big tits. We probably suspected that might have been the case at the time, but when all that attention evaporates overnight, it prompts the realization that so many of the little connections in our lives were because of what we looked like rather than who we were. Meanwhile, as men age, they become even more attractive. We watch younger women noticing our husbands, we see men having affairs, we are left for newer models.

Not only do we feel obsolete; we feel alone. Close friendships elude us. Who has the time to cultivate those gardens? We spend our days driving kids around, pushing shopping carts through stores, and taking screenshots of exercise routines we never seem to get around to doing. Our parents are aging and need our care and attention. We are desperate to stay on good terms with them, to create relationships that won’t inspire gutting regret.

Our worry is vast. Friends are starting to die of things old people die of. Cousins, or siblings, or neighbors are sick and need us to be present for them in a world where presence is hard to come by. We are wracked with fear for our children, who go to school every day, the kind of place where you might have the best times of your life, or you might die. We probably won’t witness the end of the world, but what about them? What suffering awaits?

We are filled with grief, for children in Ukraine, children of the opioid crisis, children separated from their parents by violence, death, or governments. Our own kids, who for a long time wanted nothing more than to adore us, now retreat to their rooms to hang out with their electronic devices. We are dismayed that we never thought to mark the last bedtime story. College looms.

We are tired. We are tired of being patronized at work, of taking the pat on the head, or the certificate, or the indulgent smile, when we are really fucking good at what we do. We are tired of cleaning the house, of being asked “how can I help?,” of being the unpaid project managers of very tiny companies. We are tired of being told that gratitude, yoga, self-care, or putting on a happy face is the answer to everything. At the same time, we are frustrated that we don’t seem able to engender more gratitude, yoga, self-care, or positivity.

We feel marginalized, wondering when our needs will matter. We feel invisible. Understandable, then, that we might sometimes get a little screechy and yell at buildings. We are waking up to just how much the game is rigged, and how awash in misogyny must be a world where a woman just trying to be seen and heard becomes the butt of everyone’s joke.

~January 2020