The Invisibility of Seniorhood

Being unemployed and single leaves a lot of time for me to think. Lately I have given a lot of thought to what has happened to my ego over the past 20 years.

Confidence has always been a strength for me. It was ingrained in me by my family from the instant I was born. God had given me unusual intelligence, they told me, and it was my duty to maximize that gift to the fullest. And so I strove to do so. Later, when the boys starting buzzing around, I was shocked to learn that they found me attractive. That little surprise was to become as valuable a gift as the intelligence would be. Sometimes the two "gifts" collided, because some men/boys seemed to prefer not to hear much from my brain. It got confusing.

Somehow, though, I figured out how to navigate the world and enjoy a life of achievement and recognition, both of which were very important to me.


Around age 45 I began to think of myself as a person at the top of my game but running out of time. The pressure to produce more, faster and better than everyone else, came from the workplace, yes; but it was also coming from inside me. Subconsciously, I think, I was feeling the pull of professional gravity -- the closing of that "window of opportunity" which appears on the career continuum. Now, looking back, I know that's exactly what it was.

Over the next 20 years, life happened. I grew older, shorter, thicker, too gray to keep up the hair color, more accident-prone. The mind stayed sharp, but the short-term memory faltered progressively. I retired early (age 55), started my own business, and set out to realize my dream of being my own boss. That sounded so great--until I tried it. I loved working on client projects, but absolutely hated the business part -- the quarterly taxes, the invoicing and bookkeeping, and worst of all, the hounding my clients for payment. I hightailed it back to a company with a staff!

10 years later, there are days when I don't speak a word to another human being because I don't leave the house and I communicate via email. I am totally uncomfortable with my matronly silhouette and the lack of attention from random men who seem not to even see me. Outwardly I believe I still appear to be highly confident, but inside my confidence is shaky at best.
And it is not because my birth gift, intellect, has diminished (except for that pesky short-term memory!) It's because of that "only skin-deep" quality that has never solved a puzzle, never invented a life-saving medical procedure, and never written a book. How absurd.