On Becoming ‘Invisible’
A tongue-in-cheek response!
Becoming ‘invisible’ is a common experience for Western women (I cannot speak for other cultures) that creeps up on us. It did for me. In her newsletter Gateway Elderwomen, Jody Day gave a moving account of this experience and the shock she felt at the realisation that she had become' invisible' to Italian men, having been morphed into a Signora. The comments to her post were equally touching and revealing.
In my previous post, I mentioned Carol Lefevre’s article Homesick for Ourselves. In it, she gives a poignant account of the broader, largely hidden grief of ageing and touches on the issue of being ‘unseen’ or ‘looked through’.
But to lighten the mood, here I’m taking a different approach - a tongue-in-cheek approach. It came about after I’d written my previous post, Is The Timing Right For Female Authors 60-plus? and I was given the subject matter for our next writing group session. Each fortnight, we come up with the title for our next story, and the title for the following fortnight was When Summer Decides to Leave. Putting two and two together, this is what I came up with…
‘Summer decides to leave for women at about the age of twenty-nine when it starts to move into autumn.
Autumn lasts approximately fourteen years; the first little twinges, little hints that winter is setting in, occur around the mid-forties, heralded by tiny, imperceptible little lines around the eyes.
By the time a woman hits her fifties, winter casts its shadow over her, and she starts to notice the signs. There is a subtle shift in people’s perception of her as if they think she is getting old! They call her ‘dear’ as in “Can we help you, dear?”
She starts paying attention to the anti-ageing ads and wonders if she should start using some of their morning as well as their night creams. Should she give Botox a go? She could swear that Joan’s had it done. And her jowls, maybe it’s time for those fillers.
By the time she hits sixty, winter has well and truly set in, and she’s shocked to realise that she has become invisible. People seem to think she’s teetering on a slippery slope that has her sliding down into mental and physical decline. People no longer ask her opinion about anything, and when younger family members are talking in a group, the conversation seems to float over and around her.
By the time she hits eighty, it’s all over Red Rover. The wind is whistling through the bare trees, and the snow is falling as she shuffles towards the pearly gates, where St Peter says, “Here dear, let me give you a hand.”’
Better to laugh than cry!
Kisane xoxo
Absolutely we are hidden treasures! We have had so much experience and have acquired so much wisdom. For those who don’t see or appreciate that, well it’s their loss ☺️
Family and friends and groups of 'mothers' have been ignoring me since my 40s when it became clear I had aged out of the possibility of ever being a biological mother. And so I have been looking within and creating a rich internal life ever since... I wrote the first draft of the article you reference above at 51... now almost 60, it still surprises me that the woman in the mirror is so much older and less visually appealing to me than the one in my mind's eye, the form that from 15-44 walked a few paces ahead of me and opened the world's doors for me... But as I feel into the difference between me and my saggy double, talk about it, write about it, I find that there are riches yet to be explored - by myself. As my body ages, the world withdraws from me and, finally, my body is my own again, to inhabit unbothered by the the expectations of others. I can be a rebel whilst standing perfectly still, hidden in this flesh and refusing to look away from it. Perhaps every old woman is a hidden treasure?