Invisible

I don’t know the day it happened, but I have come to realize that I am one of the invisible.  Once I was aware of this I started noticing how I don’t garner the attention I used to. Surely I did at one time, didn’t I?

I see the young girls.  The attractive ones who think their beauty is everlasting. They don’t know that they too will be invisible one day.  They wouldn’t believe it if you told them.  How could they?

One day you have the world at your feet, you can’t conceive of a time when this will fade.  Your looks will change, life happens and leaves its imprint on every part of you.  Your skin isn’t as tight, you notice lines where yesterday there were none.  Why are there silver threads in your hair?

Remember when your hips weren’t this wide?  That was before Mother Nature decided that it was time for child-bearing hips and extra padding.  No one told me things would shift and your pre-pregnancy clothes would never fit the same way again.  Same thing with feet, no one clues you in to the fact that with each pregnancy your feet are now a half-size bigger.  Those gorgeous shoes that cost a whole week’s paycheck pre-baby?  Well, you may as well donate them to Goodwill or a consignment store. Because not only can you not squeeze your new size 8 feet into those wine-colored soft-as-butter size 7 Italian leather pumps, you also never go anywhere to wear them.  Now you wear things that have baby puke on them and go to places that are stroller-friendly.  You are most likely wearing those big comfortable cotton granny panties too.  The pretty satin matched sets? Not so much.

I went to dinner with several friends one evening.  We were all similar ages, in our 40’s, but I was the short one, the heaviest one.  I knew that before we got there, I am not stupid or blind, and I have certainly seen myself in the mirror.  The owner/chef came out and said hello to us and greeted each with a kiss on the hand except me.  I got a handshake.  Like a man. Like a grandma. Like a non-sexual being.  That was quite the eye-opener.  It was like getting hit in the face with a bucket of cold water.  That’s how jarring it was.  Being over forty, and over weight is a sure bet that you will be scanned over like a part of the scenery or a piece of furniture when someone walks in and is checking the room.  It is to be invisible.

I remember the year that I was engaged to be married.  That was my peak.  I was pretty then.  Not just pretty, but I was so happy and walking around with my head up and smiling and just exuding self-confidence.  I was a bride-to-be! On several occasions that year men walked up to me and told me how beautiful I was, how pretty my eyes were, asked for my number. It was like they were compelled to do so by my confidence.  That had certainly never happened before, and not since.  It has been years since I have commanded a second glance. Years.  I don’t need other people’s validation that I am a worthy person, that’s not it. I guess I am sad and mourning the side of me that was attractive to other people and drew them to me.  

On the inside, I am still the same as I once was.  I still feel like I did when I was 21 and could (and did) flirt with everyone.  But I don’t do it anymore.  I know how sad and pathetic it is for short, fat, 50 year old people to be out and thinking they are still 21 and attractive.  It’s embarrassing for everyone.  I still have the same longing to meet new people, to flirt and make conversation, to be sensual and desired.  Now I am invisible and those days are over for me. 

It is hard to make peace with your internal and external realities sometimes.  You get to a place in your life where you realize your value to others is now through your works.  You have become a Human Do-ing rather than a human be-ing.  You aren’t worthy just by virtue of Be-ing, you have to be Do-ing things, working for a good cause, doing the jobs no one else wants, the jobs no one will pay someone to do, always putting others’ needs ahead of your own.  If you are not Do-ing, then you are invisible.

And that is where I am in my life.  It’s not that I want to turn back the clock so much as to just slow it down.  My internal clock is slower than real time.  I have always thought if each day were 48 hours rather than 24, it would work better for me.  I would have time to adjust to the changes that are happening, to the fact that my babies were growing up so fast that I couldn’t keep up, that my adult life has flown by at ten times, no a hundred times the speed of my childhood.  I need time to adjust my mindset to my current reality.  I hear of people who drop everything, who divorce their husband of 30 years, and move to a new place and start a new life, and I used to be shocked.  Now, I understand it.  There comes a sense of urgency when you realize that you have reached the top of the hill and the downhill side is so much faster than you imagined.  That bucket list you have been meaning to write and start in on?  Well, you best get moving. Time waits for no man.  Or woman.