Fifty Ways to Leave Your Mother

A few years ago, when This American Life posed the question "Which superhero power would you want?," I figured it'd be cool to be invisible.  Now that I'm 51, though, I think I'd like to renege on that answer.

I had no idea that, shortly after turning 50,  I'd wake up one day and really be invisible.   It turns out that there is almost nothing cool about not being seen...even when I'm wearing my geeky "i > u" t-shirt and the tan shorts that are missing a button. If I owned a purse, I'd be spilling its contents, looking for my receipt so that I could get a refund.

After returning from my girl trip last week--a trip that was fun and funny and really, really good--I told my friend Jill that most of our cabin conversations were about self improvement, acknowledgement that we'd all like to feel a wee bit better about ourselves.  I was lamenting to her that so much of our energy seemed focused on fixing rather than just being.  That's when Jill announced that, as 51 year olds, we'd basically become invisible. 

I was shocked that so many people could keep such an ugly secret for so long. 

. . . seriously.

The more I think about it, the more I think Jill's probably right.   Fifty-plus-year-old women are not particularly valued or sought out by our culture.  If we have kids, they're probably old enough not to need us much anymore.  If we still work, we both sense and see the wave of the next generation pushing us out to sea, their radars focused on younger versions of ourselves, all huddled excitedly at the center of things. 

My students, when they say they are surprised to find out I'm 51,  are really saying "My God!  Is it too late to change my schedule?  What does this hag have to teach me about today's world?!"  They're just too polite to say it out loud.

So, why aren't I jumping off a high cliff with rocks in my pockets?   Because I know a little secret.  And Jill backed me up on this.

Turns out that, if an American woman in her 50s can just hang in there long enough, she'll wake up one day and find out that people can see her again.  If I can just endure the silent treatment, the long glances focused just beyond my person, for another 6 or 8 years, I'll be like a monarch butterfly, newly emerged from her chrysalis, all wet and exciting and new again.

And people will know that I'm there, even without me dieting and diagnosing my way back to the world again.  I'll be like Harry Houdini, without all the hokum and hoopla--fondling the magic seeds of my 60s with my hands deep in my outdated pockets.