"To me - old age is always ten years older than I am." - Bernard Baruch
I don't know how it was decided that 65 would be the official age for becoming a senior citizen, but here I am. It is officially my old age birthday and I couldn't be happier about it. Aging is the greatest liberator of all time. I have become more of myself, less concerned about what others think, happier in my own skin, happy in my own company.
For most of my life, I've felt like a misfit. Don't misunderstand me, I can shape myself to fit in anywhere I need to but I've always sensed that I'm not quite like other people. When I look back at pictures of myself as a young woman, I see that I was actually quite pretty but I never felt I was pretty in the right way. I was smart, but spent a lot of years hiding my intellect under a bushel so as not to upset anyone with it. I was different at a time I didn't want to be different. I remember a performance appraisal I received early in my career. I got ranked at the highest performance level. I did my job exceptionally well but there was criticism. The comment on the " needs improvement" side of the scorecard was that I needed to try to not be so different. I asked what that meant but the answer was vague and a bit upsetting. Essentially I was asked to tone myself down, try not to be so fashionable, so passionate, so enthusiastic, so creative, so hard-working, so me. It made the other women in my department feel uncomfortable that they couldn't out-best me in a competition I didn't know we were in. I bought a few gray suits and tried to keep my head low. They didn't like that either. I moved on.
I've had a wonderful career, but even at the peak of my success, there was criticism - not of my performance but of me. My boss at the bank didn't like that I was too soft. My boss at the entertainment company didn't like that I was too hard. I was the same me at both places. I stopped trying to adjust my sails to suit the winds I could not control and I went into business for myself. I've done okay. I don't make the kind of money I used to but I am always me, even if at times, I am my own harshest critic. I kept my professional edge - makeup on, hair coloured and styled and nails polished. I ditched my suits for the dresses I've always preferred and when my back could no longer withstand it, I traded in my four inch heels for flats. I took a number of health hits through the years, lost some parts, gained some too. I am plump and getting shorter. My body is a myriad of scars from multiple surgeries and four months into Covid19, with my business in a coma, my now gray hair is cascading down my back.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about who I am. Things that seemed important before, barely make it to my radar screen these days. There are no mornings of checking my roots to see when I need a touch up, no careful applications of cover-up to camouflage the circles under my eyes. Beyond brushing my hair and my teeth, there is seldom even a glance in the mirror. I don't remember the last time I painted my nails. I've stopped trying to fit.
A couple of days ago, just having risen from bed in the early morning, I walked into my bathroom and out of the corner of my eye, caught my reflection in the mirror. It startled me for a moment. I wondered who the gray haired, unvarnished, older lady who stared back at me was. She almost looked feral, her face brown from the sun, her hair untamed. I moved in a little closer and looked straight into her eyes. A moment later, I smiled with the joy of recognition. Oh, that's my old friend, Jackie. I think I like her.
