Invisible

Are you there God? It’s me…the Invisible Old Lady on Every Street. We have to talk about this aging thing. On the invisibility scale I am almost a winner. The first thing I noticed when I crossed over the old age threshold was a distinct shift in my universe. I can’t tell you exactly when this happened but what I can tell you is that things have been weird and off kilter ever since.

All through my years of youth and adulthood I was quite visible. Sometimes this was for the seventy inch length of me and sometimes for the two hundred plus pounds of me. Older people would call me “stout” which in Southern Speak translates as strong. My peers, however, translated the height and width of me into some type of infringement of space. They saw me as weakness personified ( after all, she DOES have control of what she puts in her mouth, she should go on a diet!) thinking they could shame me into taking up less space in the world.

Plenty of people told me, “ Honey you have a beautiful face!” But mostly, they were related to me which cancelled out the validity of their opinions. Once at a restaurant a middle aged man said, “ Babe, you are so easy on the eyes…” and, at the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant; only sure that he was mistaken. I was aware that I was visible when men let their eyes roam over my hills and valleys. Now, no one says things like that in a husky voice full of possibility. My hills and valleys were involved in a landslide leaving no open roads.

I still work even though I am well past retirement age. I would miss the money and the daily interaction with the outside world should I retire. I like the sense of purpose it gives me. I have been a nurse for almost 50 years. That helping hand profession is hard for me to give up. What would I do with myself, retired? I always wanted to feed the homeless; dreamed of opening a soup kitchen. Who knows how long Covid-19 will be creeping among us, though, opening a soup kitchen may be destined to stay a dream. On retirement income how would I buy all the food? How would I pay rent on a building? What if someone choked? What if someone slipped and fell? There may be funeral arrangements and hospital bills that I would be responsible for. How would I pay for all that insurance?

The world just goes on changing. I’m not one of those old folks who berates technology like my husband did.

“You’ll find me pushing up daisies before I will use that damned Internet!”

That had proved true enough. He died a Google virgin. I have a smart phone, a lap top, an i-Pad, a Kindle.

My daughter makes face time calls to me at eleven o’clock every Sunday morning. It is a delight to see her sweet face but not the same as giving her a mama hug and smelling the sweet smell of the jasmine shampoo she uses on her hair. It’s true that all these changes have made everything about communication easier. When I took my Nursing Board exam back in the seventies I had to wait six weeks for the results to come in the mail. And then there was the additional 10 minute wait while I sat there, afraid to open the envelope in case I had flunked, while my whole life hung in the balance.

What I miss in this advanced communication, is touch. Touch makes one feel visible and so many of us are being deprived of it these days through emails and zoom meetings and face time calls. When my children were babies half my night was spent in short jaunts to their rooms checking on some mishap I imagined.

“What if she gets cold and freezes to death in her crib?”

“What if he rolls off that new bed and gets a sub-dural hematoma and has permanent brain damage?” Now there are electronic baby monitors that allow one to translate sounds.

“ That’s just a burp not a barf,” the husband can say, “ Now stop stealing all the covers.”

At work the incoming younger staff look at me as if to say, “ Good Lord, I hope I don’t have that many wrinkles when I’m old.” They can’t imagine the way they will look because they have no frame of reference for their essence being trapped in some aging shell of themselves. I have to admit, my journey to this changing shell was frightening. It was a shock when I first noticed the structural changes in myself. One day I am slathering on my foundation in front of the mirror and all is well with the world and the next day I carry a crease the size of a battle scar down the length of my cheek from a wrinkle made by my pillow. I am patient at first. But then it is still there after breakfast and when I drive into the parking lot at work wondering just when my face became a lump of play dough.

Throughout the day I am more sensitive to the little affectionate pats on the arm or shoulder that my co-workers give me. I translate them into actions with undercurrents. I think they might be getting one more pat in just in case I die before they can re-pat. I think perhaps this may be a good practice since we all are going to die and none of us is privy to knowing where or when. I begin to feel that people only half listen to me. There seems to be an inordinate amount of patronization creeping into my timeline. Days become iffy and difficult to navigate.

Death begins to nudge me. I begin to imagine myself standing outside cemetery gates, looking in. I begin to read the Obituaries and pay more attention to the age of people than to their stories; just like my parents and my grandparents did. I wonder if it is some kind of genetic screw up so I send my spit submission into Chromosomes Are You imagining some poor gene sequencer shaking his head and mumbling, “ Uh-oh, she’s got the Obituary Gene, poor thing.” I read about someone named May Thompson who was seventy and died of cancer and realize she is younger than me. I read about Jenny Butler who at 95 went peacefully in her sleep. I think that is a good way to go and I wonder if one night I will don my flannel pajamas, wash my face, pat my dog on the head and say, “Come on Walter, it’s bedtime!” And then only one of us wakes up and Walter misses his breakfast.

So, God I need a little advice on how to manage this whole off- kilter thing. I imagine God saying, “Live now, die later” and think this may be the answer. I toss aside the newspaper and decide that I will just concentrate on being visible to myself. It was nice to wake up this morning and be able to eat my breakfast and dress myself without outside help. It will be nice to drive myself to work and be surrounded by my sweet co-workers who are probably thinking more about their own problems than about my wrinkles. But first I check in the mirror. Yep, I’m there…hey God, it’s me….I’m back.