I had a revelation the other day.
It wasn’t that my face and body are getting increasingly weird. I knew that already.
It wasn’t that I don’t plan to do anything about it. I’ve always known I wouldn’t do anything about it. It’s a waste of time and doomed to fail, ultimately. It’s a fool’s game to try to rubberize a seventy-one-year-old body and face into a twenty-one-year-old’s mold. And it’s a good way to look even weirder.
It wasn’t even that old women are invisible. Old women are always complaining about being invisible. They feel dismissed. Not me. I’m way too loud to be ignored.
But even though I know it’s stupid to be weirded out by how weird I look, I still have this cringy feeling sometimes. Like when I see a photo of myself or look in the mirror. The view from inside is the same as always, but the exterior view is spectacularly weird. I observe this alarming baggage happening under my chin and watch my eyes shrink into little shriveled peas and can’t help but think: Why aren’t people pointing and laughing at me? Or screaming and running away from me? Or spraying me with holy water and Latin?
I don’t worry about the opinion of my peers. We’ve all got our things. And our things have hairs sprouting out of them, and fissures running through them, and spots, and moles, and mostly, we all give each other a pass. We’ve softened in the heart as well as the belly.
But how could it be that the world at large isn’t recoiling at the horror that is my current presentation, soon to be replaced by even weirder versions?
That’s where my revelation comes in.
I realized that when people assess my looks, they are seeing an old woman. When you’re young, you’re aware of old people as a certain subset of humanity that has always existed in its current form. Old people have always been old. So when a young person encounters me on the street, and sees that my neck has turned into some elaborate wrinkly drapery that might, at any moment, pull aside for a puppet show, they think it’s just as it should be. It’s the way the elderly look. In other words, I look just fine. For an old person.
It’s harder for the elderly to accept. Because we are veritable Russian nesting dolls of all the ages we’ve ever been, and most of them are appalled at how scuffed-up the current container has gotten.
The latest wrinkle—it’s not a wrinkle—is the fact that my hair has started falling out with abandon. I have more hair on my sweater than on my head. My once-glorious golden curtain is rapidly becoming a dingy sheer. The desertification is starting at the temples and working its way back. The last time I got a haircut, I mentioned this to my barber, and she said—I swear—“Yeah, I noticed that as soon as you came in the door!” Well, fine. I didn’t have Male Pattern Baldness penciled in on my dotage chart, but whatever.
I do have a prostate exam scheduled for next week. Just in case.
You’re not alone! The main thing is to try to keep our brains relatively in sync with our bodies, age-wise. I have a few relatives whose lives of skiing, biking, hiking, and general aversion to fast cars, drugs, smoking, and alcohol made them so durable that they outlived their mental faculties. Being 95 years old and having no cognition doesn’t sound that great to me. Either keep the brain going, or go ahead and do the body in with unremitting vice. Pass the doobie.
Well I have an aversion to fast cars, drugs, and smoking, and I’m batty as hell.
Yeah, I’m in the latter category. I do NOT want to live to a “ripe old age.” I will undoubtedly outlast my money if I do. And if I go blind, and can’t drive, I will have no autonomy, as I live in a place where you NEED a car to get around. Plus, my mom had cognitive decline from Alzheimer’s. It’s the worst way to go… losing who you essentially ARE. I had uncles with cancer, and now my husband Paul. Yes, it is horrendous. But they were and are who they essentially were before.
So, yeah, vice it is for me!
Sorry about Paul. Jeez. Cancer isn’t (mostly) as scary as it used to be, but scary enough. I still feel like I’m about eight so maybe I’ll stay lucky.
I am so sorry to hear about Paul.
Thank you, Jeremy.
I come from a family with good hair. My great grandfather had a full head of hair into his 90s, my grandfather had hair into his late late 80s. My dad still has all his hair and turns 90 next month.
My older brother lost his hair decades ago. He blames that on having children and having a lab mate who wasn’t careful with radioactive materials.
I had a full head of hair until I had Covid in 2022. And then I noticed the sink strainer was full of hair. Still doesn’t look bad, but I can see my scalp shining through.
My barber said it’ll grow back and also tried to sell me hair-gro products.
You could always grow it out and do some sort of man-bun situation.
Don’t worry, honey. We can just trust in the MAGA candidate, and he will protect us. We’ll be “happy, healthy, confident, and free.” Probably younger, too. If that doesn’t tempt us, I guess we’re screwed. Our spacesuits are dying with us inside.
I’m so aghast at the idea we’d want him to protect us that I’ve been doing a whole brain scrub today and then YOU come along and…
If some strange guy came up to me and said that, I’d call the cops and have a restraining order placed on him. That’s just creepy!
I have always wanted to be invisible and loved it when I got old enough that nobody was interested. Wrinkles are a small price to pay for being left alone. I could do without the various forms of ‘dear’ employed by mostly 50 something women, but you can’t have everything and it’s a small thing.
Oh dear! I wonder if I do that.
Six years ago, when I was 70, I started highlighting my white hair with purple. I chose that color because it’s the only one that lasts more than two weeks. My hair is a conversation starter for all ages and makes me not invisible. Once I have a conversation with a new person, they see me.
Do liver spots work as well?
I want to know how the crepey skin snuck in. Wham overnight!!
Probably not. I just noticed the other day that my skin his hanging off my calf and I’ll bet it’s been that way for a while.
Puppet show——too funny. My recently late 96 old French amie, Therese, used beautiful scarves to hide the curtain which was her neck. Ah, vanity.
Every woman I know knows how to wear a scarf. I need some pointers.
I don’t use them to cover my neck, but use colorful ones tied lower to attract attention away from my neck. Also I wear v-necks as opposed to crew necks or turtlenecks for the same reason. “Hey! Why are you looking at my face? My tits are down HERE!”
Mine are WAY down here.
I’m enjoying the invisible part of old age.
Scarves? Just keep wrapping until you can’t see any wrinkles.
Maybe a neck tourniquet.
“Because we are veritable Russian nesting dolls of all the ages we’ve ever been, and most of them are appalled at how scuffed-up the current container has gotten.” Perfect description of how at 75 I still feel like all the ages. Thanks for that Murr.
But it’s true. I have wondered if being a parent makes you finally feel like an adult.
It definitely makes you feel mortal. Suddenly another life is dependent upon you staying alive!
I’ll skip a few pages here…
Where I live (up in the hot part of Australia’s East coast) the summer season is right around the corner, so applying for a fire permit to have candles on my 79th cake is a joke.
Last week I had my hair cut. First time I’d been to that salon. The young woman did a brilliant job of transforming a scruffy old woman into a smartly-coiffed woman of mature years. I was right chuffed! And when I came to pay for the “hair cut” and handed her my plastic, along with a pensioner’s card…she said “Oh that’s OK, I don’t need to see that.”
My barber had a Senior Rates sign out front and she has given me the senior rate since I was in my mid-fifties. I finally asked her what the cutoff was and she said “65.” I said: Ha ha! I’m only 58! And she just chuckled and gave me the senior rate.
I TOOK IT.
I’m 78, the same age as Bill Clinton, George. Bush and Donald Trump. Murr, I don’t think of you as old.
That makes two of us!
In a few weeks I’ll be 63 so I’m not that far behind you, but since knowing you Murr, I’ve seen enough photos of you from the 1960s-70s to see you in that context when you’re sharing. Sometimes, when you’re remarking on your age, it’s almost like there’s 2 of you. I like both just fine. 🙂 Speaking of showing ones age, last December I got covid which then became long covid and I’ve been out of commission this past year. It’s made my hair fall out and sunken in my eyes, I look a lot older. But it also made me lose 50 lbs, and from the neck down I’m seeing a body I haven’t had since 1990, so I’m hoping to keep that at least. 🙃
Doug, at 63, I consider you a youth. I’m 68, and my husband is 61. I STILL consider it robbing the cradle. (We met when I was 30 and he was 23. I still remember my friend Ed asking me what playground I met him in. I never expected it to be more than a fling because of the age discrepancy. But he was mature for his age, and looked past the age difference. And the rest is history, as they say.)
Very interesting Mimi, when I was 20 I met and dated a 31 year old for around a month. But unlike your husband I was just too immature and backed away. My loss, she was awesome. PS. I am so sorry about your husband’s cancer. 😔
Thank you, Doug.❤️
I’m just glad wrinkles don’t hurt.
I hope I don’t have to floss them eventually.
A writer in the entertainment sphere once said the most effective way to feel totally invisible is to be a middle-aged man sitting the same room with Idris Elba.
I can see that.
…0ld people as a subcategory of human? Yes! As a youngster I assumed that people were born at the age they now appeared and I would always be young! Big disappointment to learn that I am now born old, lol.
My remedy: Stay in motion and smile as much as reasonably possible! No still photos, Thankyou.
I can add: be a dillitante. Both Paul and I have had many interests during our lives. Most of them fell by the wayside to give way to others. For him, it’s been woodworking, piano, bicycling. For me, I wrote and drew fan fiction for a long while (was a Harry Potter geek.) There was gardening with native plants. Cooking. Hiking.
Some of these interests fell away. Others we hope to get back to at some point. I think that it’s important to reassess one’s interests from time to time. He gave up woodworking because we had enough furniture. Bicycling because of health problems. I gave up fan fiction stuff, as I no longer am into that sort of thing. I do enjoy writing, but mostly rambling e-mails and comments. Gardening and hiking have given way to arthritis. However! I find that as I am doing more and more of both the chores I usually do, PLUS the chores that Paul usually does (which require more muscle strength), my arthritis has abated a LOT. So perhaps I will get back to these things I used to love. I hope so!
I’ve had serial passions, but I am not as philosophical about it as you are. I mourn them all.