"when I'm old..."

“When I’m old I will have a goat and feed him pink roses.” – greeting card

“Menopausal women are invisible,” my friend Rosanne once told me. “It’s like we simply don’t exist. You’ll see for yourself someday. Store clerks don’t see you. Waiters and waitresses don’t see you. Other women don’t see you. And, men, well, to them it’s as if you never existed at all.”

When Rosie said that, I didn’t believe her. I thought she was being over dramatic or having a bad day. But, now that I have joined her club, I see it is true. Once menopause hits, folks don’t notice you like they once did and they certainly don’t see you the way they used to.

I began to experience this when it became harder and harder to get help in stores. I was the same person, with the same wallet, bank account and spending potential I’d always been, but for some reason, my money was of little interest. I don’t remember dressing differently or acting differently, but something must have given me away, because people being paid to help customers were not helping me. I didn’t get the sense they were being rude – they just didn’t seem to see me.  

A little farther down the menopause path, I noticed that men didn’t notice me anymore. I’ve never been a super looker, but most of my adult life I’ve been kind enough on the eye that men give me at least a passing glance. No more; Rosie was right. It’s as if I’m not here - at all and to add insult to injury, even old men act this way.

It’s as if when your hormones shut off, your own version of a Klingon Cloaking Device (Star Trek) turns on. You can see everyone and everything. You’re functioning in the world. But, the world doesn’t see you - you’re invisible.  

 Nowhere is this phenomenon more dangerous than at the hair salon. Apparently, to stylists under the age of say, 35, all “old” women look alike. We seem to be lumped into a group whose heads appear to be so similar that it doesn’t matter what they do to us. Since they can’t envision being as “old” as we are, they lack vision as to the many different ways we “old” women can look. In their eyes our “old” heads have no potential, so it’s no surprise that the tears often fall after the hair flies…

For years I wasn’t that concerned about my hair. My main request was something like, “I’d like to look a little trendy, but mostly it needs to be easy to take care of and stay out of my eyes.” And, for years my hair turned out just fine. Then, in search of a “new look” (at the age of 53) I went to a young stylist a young friend recommended. In the blink of an eye, she’d cut all my hair off and given me the head of an eight-year-old boy.

 

At the time, I wondered what she was thinking and why she had done this to me. Now that I understand the Cloaking Device (similar disasters have happened time and time again…) I understand that the face the young stylist sees in her mirror doesn’t look anything like me and the words she coming out of my mouth sound nothing like mine…Apparently the Cloaking Device has a word scrambler, too.  

Recently, I found a great stylist. She came on the recommendation of a couple “old” friends who always have great looking hair. It’s obvious she’s very talented, but she’s “old,” too, so she gets it. When we sit in her chair and look in her mirror, she sees unique faces and hears different voices…

We were doing great until the weather got hot and after a particularly sweaty day of work in the garden, I yielded to one of those frantic, “I have to do something about this hair now!” panics. Into the first available young stylist’s chair I went and the cut and highlights I left with were nothing I asked for and everything I had not. Where was the “wisdom of age” in that impulse…?

I had an odd flash as I came out of the house to go to my yoga class the other day. As I locked the door, I saw the reflection of an older woman with a roundish menopause body, nicely draped in colorful flowing clothes. Her too short, too uniformly highlighted hair looked okay. She’d obviously put product in it. She looked healthy enough and happy, too.  

 “Who is that woman?” I thought. “Is that me?” I didn’t wonder in a negative way. The reflection obviously has a pleasant, well-blessed life. She just didn’t look like the older woman I thought I’d be…    

One thing I learned from my grandmothers and from some of the “older” women I’ve known is to enjoy the journey, try to age gracefully and embrace one’s eccentricities. My inspiration is Ouiser Boudreaux (Steel Magnolias), who among the many colorful things she proclaimed, said: “Because I’m an old Southern woman and we’re supposed to wear funny looking hats and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt.”  

Cloaking Device or not, you could do a whole lot worse than that…