The Invisibility of an Ageing Woman - A Fragment

I never really understood when older friends and colleagues spoke of how invisible they felt they’d become as they aged. I do now. I experience it on an almost daily basis. The number of times I’ve been apologised to because ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there.’ and I’ve been incredulous because there’s a lot of me to not see! And I could tell from the chagrin on the face of the apologiser that it wasn’t intentional. 

So what happens? My sister-in-law’s mother, R,  is in her mid 90’s and despite the fact that she is blind and cannot move safely or easily is adamant she doesn’t want to go into a home. This has caused conflict within her family. My brother and his wife use their life savings to pay for her to have a live in carer. My sister-in-law’s brother and his wife feel she should go into a home. That’s more the wife’s view as she states quite emphatically that R has had her life and they should be free to live theirs without having to worry about her. And I wonder if that is the crux? Once you’ve reached retirement and pension age are you viewed as someone who has had their life? Therefore you no longer ‘count’ as a viable and vital human being? Hence you don’t need to be seen therefore you are invisible. (As an aside, if I extrapolate that back was I, when younger, guilty of treating older people as invisible? I certainly don’t remember doing so, if I did I cannot apologise sufficiently.) As if ageing isn’t difficult enough?!

The Danish writer, Anne Cathrine Bomann, wrote in her novel ‘Agatha’,

 ‘Ageing…….. was mainly about observing the differences between one’s self and one’s body get bigger and bigger until eventually one awakes a total stranger to oneself.’

I found this to be acutely true for myself. From time to time  I catch glimpses of myself in a mirror and wonder who on earth that old lady is and I realise it is me. I see the skin on my arms resemble a crepe bandage and I see the age marks on my arms and hands as if a child has run rampant with a felt tip marker and dotted me while I was asleep. I see sagging everywhere. Wrinkles; smile lines and frown lines are now cruelly etched onto my visage. I let my hair change colour naturally, quite liking the pepper and salt effect initially, now the white coverage increases and I keep it short to minimise it. My hands do not feel like mine anymore. I do not recognise this alien shell I am inhabiting.  Certainly this body doesn’t work as well as it used to. As my joints, one by one, decide to seize up permanently and my poor, deranged spine screams out about the abuse and stress I put it under through years of so called healthy exercise I feel this sense of separation from mind and body. 

When I was a teenager I thrilled to the music of Simon and Garfunkel, possibly viewed as easy listening nowadays but back then they were innovators, one of the first artists to use synthesisers, for example. Their concept album, Bookends, looked at the stages of life and their views on ageing were poignant to me even then……

‘Can you imagine us years from today

Sharing a park bench quietly?

How terribly strange to be seventy’

At seventeen I couldn’t imagine being seventy. I can now and I’m scared.My mind doesn’t seem to age at the same rate as my body. So far my memory lapses comprise of an often inability to instantly recall the right word or the right names, failing to recall quotations that I once had at my fingertips, forgetting what I came upstairs or entered a room for, but I continue to believe, that on the whole my intellect remains intact. My hopes, dreams, desires are still there but with an increasing realisation that most, now, will never be accomplished. The realisation that there are things I will never do again and I mourn the fact that on the last occasion I did some of them I didn’t realise it was the last time. There are some things that I bitterly resent probably not having the opportunity to do again. It hurts deeply. 

But, if I ignore this bodily deterioration and focus solely on the inner me, my spirit, my intellect I don’t feel much different! But it’s confusing. My body is giving me another story. People's reactions are too. For in mixed company however much I may wish to see myself as unchanged mentally I am still lumped into the ‘oldies’ category and am treated accordingly by the younger people. I remember attending the birthday event of a friend of mine whose son took my arm as we ascended a flight of stairs and I said to him, ‘You make me feel like I’m an old lady!’ He said,’But you are an old lady.’ That stung.

But there was one place where my shrivelling body didn’t matter. And that was the internet. Social media. Email. No one could see me. I could present as me and not be judged on my age. And it was fun. And I know, I just know, that with some interactions people had taken me for a much younger person. I liked it! But of course, that kind of deceit and subterfuge just isn’t me. There were a couple of occasions where I actually met with some of the people I’d interacted with online. Whether they were surprised by me in person I’m not entirely sure. They didn’t obviously show it. But subsequently online I felt that I was treated differently. There was a subtle shift in the dynamic. But for me as Terry Pratchett said in Moving Pictures -

“…inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” 

Yet, ageing is something most people go through if some tragedy doesn't intervene. Is everyone as dissatisfied and despondent as I am? For me it seemed to happen too suddenly. I feel I never had time to prepare. I feel cheated. I wasn’t ready to be old. But is anyone? Part of me thinks that it isn't so much abut the numbers. I'm in my sixties, in case you're interested and there is that body of thought that affirms 60 isn't old. It is, though, when your physical body is playing silly buggers.I wonder of that is another crux of ageing. I attend certain classes and gatherings and there are people there, some older than me,  who appear to be content within their own skins. I’m not sure whether they really are or whether it is a front. I long to ask them but it feels like crossing a line. I have a friend, L, who goes to my Tai Chi class who is in her early seventies and I asked her about it once. She said she doesn't think about her age much!  I do wonder whether I’m in a transition phase? And I will reach a place where I’m comfortable with myself? I can but hope!

I wonder, too, as well as the physical thing whether it is circumstance. Maybe if I had kids and grandkids I would feel differently? On a day to day basis but also would I feel less fearful of the future? Knowing there were people who had my back. I’m terrified of getting to the stage where I can no longer live independently. The thought of living in an old folks home where I might be neglected and even abused fills me with horror. 

I’m being very negative, I know. What are the pluses of ageing? Senior discounts on events, cinema admissions etc. A bus pass. Free flu jabs. Free prescriptions. They don’t pacify me, I’m afraid. 

There’s nothing to love about being old.