Maybe we're not becoming invisible. Maybe we're being taught to disappear.
Do we become less visible as we age?
I’ve been thinking about that lately.
Our hair gradually loses its colour and turns grey or white. Our eyebrows fade. Our skin gets thinner, and the bruises seem to last longer. Our faces soften. Even the colours we once took for granted seem to slowly disappear.
But does that mean we’re disappearing too?
I never thought so.
When I think of myself, I don’t feel old. In my head, I’m still the same woman I’ve always been. It’s usually only when I catch myself unexpectedly in a mirror—or try to get up after squatting down—that I’m reminded that the woman on the outside has gotten older.
For the most part, that hasn’t bothered me.
Then I started looking for work at sixty.
Employers aren’t supposed to judge us because of our age. And I’m sure if you asked most of them, they would tell you they don’t.
But how can they possibly not see it?
They can do the math.
So I started doing something I never imagined I would do.
I took years off my résumé.
Not years I didn’t work. Years I did work.
Years when I learned things. Solved problems. Made mistakes. Figured things out. Became better at what I do.
I removed some of those years because I thought they made me look too old.
There’s something terribly backwards about that.
I was trying to make myself look like I had less experience so that someone might give me the opportunity to benefit from the experience I actually have.
And the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.
Because it felt like I was devaluing myself before anyone else had the chance to.
Maybe that’s the part of becoming invisible that I hadn’t understood.
Maybe it doesn’t happen all at once.
Maybe nobody actually tells us to disappear.
Maybe we just start editing ourselves.
We take a few years off the résumé.
We decide something isn’t appropriate for our age anymore.
We stop putting ourselves forward because someone younger would probably be better at it.
We wonder whether it’s too late to start something new.
We make ourselves a little quieter. A little safer. A little smaller.
And eventually we’re helping the world overlook us.
I don’t want to do that.
I’ve lived smaller for too many years already.
The truth is, I like the woman I am now much more than the woman I was when I was younger.
I’m wiser.
I know myself better.
I’m more willing to question things I once simply accepted.
I’ve survived things that changed me and learned things I couldn’t possibly have known at thirty or forty.
Yes, I’m older.
Why should I pretend otherwise?
Those years aren’t something that happened to me.
They’re mine.
I earned them.
So maybe the question isn’t whether women become invisible as we age.
Maybe the question is whether we start believing we’re supposed to.
My hair may be fading.
My eyebrows may be fading.
But I’m not.
And I don’t intend to help anyone erase me.
A thought to take with you
Have you ever made yourself smaller because of what you thought was expected of you at this stage of your life?
What might change if you stopped?
Something come to mind?
If you'd like to share it, I'd love to hear what this story made you think about.