Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Picasso's Reflection of A Girl in the Mirror

I am 66 years old. I sincerely hope that this does not stop you from reading forward. For let’s face it, for many, this honest admission is a deal breaker. But I ask you to continue on. Perhaps the shared reflections will transcend.

This entry is about the effects of aging on our physicality and emotions. With all due respect I am in no way diminishing the reality of debilitating illnesses as we get older. It is not my intent to downplay such seriousness. I have recently lost dear friends who had fought valiant battles with disease. So I ask the reader to view my sharings from the perspective of facing the loss of youth and the ramifications such a change takes on one’s role in society, self-esteem, and self-acceptance. I will tell my story and thoughts in hopes it may resonate.

Dali's Old Woman

So let me begin with the physical changes of aging. Undeniable yet inevitable. From my conversations with friends, both men and women, the aging of our bodies and faces challenges even the most balanced among us. Looking in that mirror each morning, suddenly the image that stares back is not the young person that once defined. Taking photos becomes a painful process of trying not to find the best shot but rather to wonder who is that person in the photograph. I am no exception. I really do not know what I look like any longer. It is startling.

Not the girl next door

Honestly, in my life, looks were not always a priority or expectation. I never thought of myself as attractive. I grew up with a beautiful Mother who often reminded me that I will never be as smart or as pretty as she. I went through awkward stages, chubby years, funny hairstyles, and plain Jane moments. On top of that, in the 60s of my youth, desirability standards were defined as blonde, white, or pretty. The times did not support unusual looks. I was not the girl next door. I was not the girl in the magazines or television shows. I was not Sandra Dee. And I was a racial mess—only amplified by the confusion of my heritage and upbringing. Put all of this together, I became invisible.

Mom and me

I understand now, after much therapy and just the experience of knowing, that had I been told by my family that I was lovely, I could have had a fighting chance against the insecurities that arose from societal restrictions. But that was not my case. It has taken years to understand and forgive my Mother for her lack of caring. But I know now that such emotional abandonment was not meant at me. It was never even about me. Mom, too, was a product of her times, of her ethnic confusion, of her sad marriage. She was struggling and there was no room for caretaking her chubby daughter. It was her life sadnesses. And it now breaks my heart.

So, in my early, formative youth, I was left to make sense of the “gorda” (Portuguese for fat), and the “not the pretty one” remarks. As a teenager, I stopped going to the local dances because I never got asked to dance and I just could not handle the exclusion. I barely made it to my High School Senior prom and spent the evening with a date who was more interested in a classmate. No surprise, she was blonde.  Even in college, when as my photos attest, I actually became attractive, I still did not get asked out on dates. I spent many Saturday nights alone in the sorority. I recall once that the Sigma Chi’s (in a drunken, immature stupor) broke into the house and stacked all the living room furniture up to the hallway ceiling so that the girls would find it upon returning from their dates. But I was “home”. There was actually a photo taken of me sitting on all the chairs, table, and sofa piled atop each other. Yes, I know what you must think. What a loser.

College days

And the stories continue… Once at a mixer, a guy came up to my girl friend and me. Clearly interested in her, he coyly flirted by trying to guess our names.

Him (looking lustfully at my friend): “Let me guess, you must be Cathy or Debbie or Mary? You are cute like a Sally or a Sue”
Me (sarcastically): “You are close.  (long pause) Laura, her name is Laura. (short pause) So can you guess my name?”
Him: “Oh yeah, you. Well…how about Carmen?”
And then, before I could answer, they walked off together, leaving me standing there to figure out if he just insulted my ethnicity or simply was like the rest of them, not interested.

But then, as the years went on, I seemed to “grow” into my face, I was coming into a new look. I wore it well. And when I lost a lot weight, suddenly, I became desirable. I was 40. Better late than never.

So, I went through the last 20 years with a sense that I was viable. Not a beauty like my Mom (or her sisters) but, none the less, attractive. I was, for the first time, noticed and accepted. I realized there was power in that but I was not savvy enough to play it up. I was just content to be what it was. I learned to dress well, put on makeup, and style my hair. And though this did not dominate my life as a Mother, career woman, or single person, I was free from worrying about my looks.  

But nothing lasts forever. As with everything in life, genetics reared its head. I got older. Looks faded. And it became apparent that the passage of youth and its ramifications were impacting my ability to move forward.

Without a doubt, we live in world that glorifies the young and minimizes the old. Historically, as a species, we did not evolve that way. Human kind focused on survival where the youth were the hunter-gathers and the child bearers. Families survived autonomously or in small villages where community dominated and supported life’s journey. Older people were the sages, in the acknowledged final phase of life, and required unquestioned care taking and respect. It was a cloistered way but it offered purpose and dignity to each phase of life. During such times when life expectancy was cut short by continuous war and plagues, it was a gift to survive into old age—worthy of honor and respect.

But with modern society, aging no longer is a goal, a privilege, a desired recognition. Especially in today’s pop culture, older people are relegated to cliched stereotypes of eccentricity, unattractiveness, and non-productivity. With today’s emphasis on the beauty of an unwrinkled face, the physical desire for a taut body, and the intellectual drive to keep up with what is new and innovative, older people are discarded. I recently watched a film about a single, eccentric elderly woman. There she was…unabashedly pathetic, alone, in crazy clothes, content to talk to herself while sitting in the cubicle of her low paying job. When she went home to her cat filled apartment with mis-matched furniture and doilies, I walked out of the theater.

Berkeley, 1972

Ironically, mine was a generation that paved the way for human rights in gender, race, and social ranking. In the 60s and 70s, women burned the bra to demand equality. Noble and necessary and yes ground breaking. But somehow we forgot that one day we would need that damn bra to hold up our sagging and growing breasts. In retrospect, probably not the best symbolic choice.  Were we shortsighted not to also demand a retirement strategy? How could we grasp what awaited? How could we know, in our quest for equality, that such criteria would not apply as we aged? That, in what sometimes seems like a blink of an eye, we would be grappling with lonely, generational survival. We have become anomalies in a world we once envisioned to be fair and inclusive.

And my life has been a testimony to such a fate…

I was laid off, in my late 50s, from my last job as the company was downsizing with younger girls who made half my salary. So, under the guise of a reorganization, I was let go. And, as I started the arduous task of job hunting, it became more and more apparent that, no matter how qualified I was for the position, I was passed over for a younger candidate. But I persevered and persevered--though the humiliation and inequity gnawed at my self value. I saw the glaring reality. I finally reached the point where I simply could not be interviewed one more time by a pregnant girl. So I started my own business, ARTISTA, not only because I loved art and felt passionately about the vision but also because I was weary from interviewing with the same ageist results. I was not going to be a doomed contender in the job market. At least, not within the structure of a youth oriented business model.

In my personal life, I found that men in their later years simply are not interested in dating their chronological companions. Here are some stories on this topic:
- Both my brothers remarried women younger than my daughters and, in the case of one of my brothers, younger than his children.  

-I was once set up with a guy two years younger than I. The conversation focused on the Beatles. Without missing a beat, he pointed out that he knew very little about them (really-who doesn't know the Beatles?) and that this was more “my generation” than his. He went on to marry a woman 30 years his junior.

-When the Impressionist collection from the Musee d’Orsay came to San Francisco, I went. The room of Van Gogh paintings was especially crowded and I found myself shuffling closely, slowly through the exhibit. I noticed an older man (my age) with a much younger woman. As they came upon the painting“Starry Night”, he turned to the girl and, with intensity and pretension, started to recite the lyrics from Don McLean’s song, “Vincent”. A song from 1971.  When he was her age.  Anyway, he spoke as if the words were his, as if he was suddenly inspired in the moment, pointing at each damn star.
“Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and gold”.
 She began cooing and ah-ing. “How did you come up with this? You are so brilliant!”
He simply smiled and took credit and she, in her inexperienced lust, fell for it.  The look of disgust on my face said it all! I moved away as fast as I could—no easy task in a room filled with wall to wall people. And I missed the rest of the Van Goghs! 

Van Gogh's Old Man

-That was no worse than my brother telling me he could not discuss his theory on the Kennedy assassination plot because his 30 something wife did not like ancient American history. First of all, there was no conspiracy and American history does not qualify as ancient. But, point taken! ARGH!!!!!!

-The last person I dated was recently divorced from a woman who was my daughter’s age. He is my age. And though we connected on so many levels, sharing laughter over the music and the good old childhood days of San Francisco in the 60’s, such commonalities could not prevail. I discovered that he was trolling the internet for younger women, actually girls in their 20’s. I was disgusted and hurt at the same time. There are many reasons I stopped dating. This clearly was the last straw. I was/am done.

So now I am left to a personal evaluation of being an older person. It is tough. I hear my friends lament. There are those who accept, there are those who deny. There are those who criticize. I don’t judge. I am simply trying to maintain a level of dignity, self respect, and, yes, peace. I am trying to grow old against all the diminishing odds.

A lovely capture of Audrey Hepburn through the years...
Aging with grace and dignity

And, honestly, often It is just too difficult…

…Difficult because I still need to get out in the business world and justify my value. The condescending remarks exist.  In this fast moving, technology driven world where intelligence is shrouded by the ability to use buzzwords and name drop the latest apps, I am a dinosaur struggling against extinction. I see the looks, I feel the rejection.  Let’s face it, no one wants to hire a person in their sixties. It is not PC to admit ageism but it is not a quota that companies feel compelled to fill in their HR employee profile.

…Difficult because there are moments when I find myself self-sabotaging with such remarks like, “when I was young” or “remember when”.  I follow such remarks with, “Damn, why did I say that?” But it is too late. The reacting, youthful eyes roll, the backs are turned and they just walk away. I should know better than to speak in such a predictably cliché manner that only fosters and encourages generational condescension.

But seriously…is it that hard to speak to me face to face rather than text? Don’t you realize I have to put on my glasses just to read what you could simply say? Can you at least pretend to know that actress from the 60s? Her films were classic and she won an Academy Award! No, Charles DeGaulle was/is not just an airport. And, honestly, can you admit that rap music sucks?

…Difficult to look in the mirror. My darling, six year old granddaughter recently, innocently, asked me, “Do you have the chicken pox?” as she pointed to my age spots. Out of the mouth of babes, with no ill intent, a truthful observation. So I had a makeover in hopes it would just boost my morale. How humiliating to have to explain to the young, albeit sweet, makeup artist that my eyeliner now smudges because I have wrinkles that hang over the eye lid. She looks at me in puzzlement. Gone are the obligatory, youthful comments about my soft, luminous skin. Now only such statements as, “Let’s see what we can do” or “At your age…” I honestly don’t recognize myself anymore, no matter what makeup or crease reduction cream I use. I struggle with the hair, the weight, the age lines. Shallow? Probably.  Insecure? Definitely.  Sad? On some days, absolutely.

I saw this while riding the subway in NYC.
A perfect reflection

…Difficult because, in my head and spirit, I am still young. Actually, I am better than my young self as I am now more evolved. I am an experiential learner and life has given me a bounty of lessons which have made me a truer person. I am smarter, I am even funnier, and, most important, I am kinder. I am proud of such personal growth. And I still find myself thinking up new challenges and adventures. It is in my DNA to be a dreamer and seeker. Age will never stop that. I just need to figure out how to challenge such AHA moments within the reality of being an older person living in a different world.

Just 2 years ago...
Happy in New York

I realize that, if I was happier with my living situation, if the toll of the past year had not been so damaging, I would not be so broken. I am sure my physicality would reflect differently if my life was not so uncertain and challenging. I look at pictures of myself just two years ago, living in New York and I see a happy and vibrant woman. That is a testimony that age never was a factor to happiness. Where did that joy go? And, more importantly, will it ever return? Or is that the destiny of aging…to simply stare back upon one’s glory days while wearing the face of your sorrows?

So, yes, 66 is grim and challenging. But, on a good day, when there is hopeful resolve, I can look in the mirror and think, “Not bad for 66.” And I continue--no matter what society and the passage of time deems, no matter how frustrating, no matter the image that is reflected in that mirror. Some may interpret that as a compromise but I see it as a declaration of reclamation and redefinition; the once and new me merging into one.

The Make-over. When I shared this with a 72 year old friend,
she wrote me a thank you for the inspiration. She has booked
herself a make over as well!! Forever spirited!