OLD LADY

November 30, 2020

When did I get so old, I ask you?  Just a few days ago I was 20 and now I am 64 and still a whore.  Ya, I said it.  When I was 30, men asked me out that were 15 to twenty years older.  It seemed like I just hit 30 and they sensed it and figured that I was ready for a more mature man.  This was back when I thought I was straight.  While waiting for a table to open at a local restaurant, a friend and I sat at the bar and got a drink.  A man who was about 50 and overweight walked over to us and started chatting.  I can't remember what he said but he had a stroke and one side of his body was paralyzed. He was handsome but not for me.  At some point he said something flirtatious and took off his glasses to show his face like it was the big reveal or that scene where Robert Stack takes off his sunglasses in the movie Airplane because he has something important to say.  Only Robert Stack has another pair of sunglasses on.  (Still makes me laugh)  As we walked to our table he asked if I came here often and I said I didn't.  Another man I met at a play got my phone number from someone and called me to have a drink with him.  He was about 20 years older and I said thank you but that I wasn't interested.  He told the someone that gave him my number, that he was very upset with me and I felt like saying, "You're old enough to be my daddy!" 

When I hit 40 years old, all of the sudden, people in grocery stores and other places began calling me mam.  How in the hell did they know I was 40?  Before that it was Miss.  Just the day before I was a Miss!  Did I change so much from one day to the next?

When I hit 50, ok, I don't remember 50.  Frankly, I don't remember much.  Who is this?  No really, when I hit 50, uhm.. nobody gave a shit.  I mean I had a beautiful birthday but people started to change their attitude towards me.  I shared with a friend that I felt invisible at times and she said rather sadly that because she had been overweight her whole life, she had always been invisible.  I wanted to cry at that one.

When I had to move 7 years ago, a friend suggested a place her mom had lived in for ages 50 and over.  She felt I would be one of the young people there and people much older would enjoy my company.  It was sort of in my price range.  I went and it seemed nice and then I got so depressed seeing folks unable to get around very well and the people my own age seemed whack and needed a lot of help.  If I fell and needed a doctor, it would be easy to get assistance and the bus was easy to get to and they had movie night and a cafeteria and it was the most depressing place I had ever seen.!  Moving there would mean to me that I can't do much for myself and ain't it great there are places like this for a disabled old broad like me.  I couldn't do it.  Truly, it wasn't that depressing.  It was me getting so depressed in that atmosphere.  It felt like I would be stuck and I just didn't want it.

Now I'm 64, and I get still get mam a lot.  But I don't seem to care.  Could it be that I'm more comfortable with me?  Maybe. There's something so much easier as one gets older.  What mattered so much 40 years ago, doesn't matter now.  If I wear the same shirt two days in a row, no one seems to care unless it's dirty of course.  If I can't be somewhere for a party or an event, (pre Covid), folks are more likely to understand.  I seem to need far less attention or even want it and my time alone is more sacred.  My friendships are better and frankly, make more sense.  I sure don't feel invisible anymore.

I'll let you know what 65 brings.