The Invisible Team

I wish I didn’t care about the lines on my face

But I do.

I wish looking at old photos didn’t depress me

But it does.

I wish I was aging gracefully

But I’m not.

I’m not sure when I started feeling faded by time. I just know it happened slowly and sneakily.

It’s like the years are stripping away small pieces of me, and I’ll never get them back.

I remember the weeks leading to my 40^th birthday. I felt a sense of dread because I attached so much meaning to the number. I’d no longer be in the “young” category.

I’d be in the middle-aged category.

Time has given me perspective, because now 40 seems young to me. I look back at photos of myself then and think I didn’t look bad.

But this is only because I’m comparing it to how I look now with two more decades on me.

The truth is, then I didn’t think I looked great either. Then I saw flaws and signs of aging that I didn’t like.

Now I wish I could have enjoyed being 40 instead of longing to be 30. And when I was 30, I wish I could’ve enjoyed being 30 instead of longing to be 20.

Maybe it started earlier when I was a child. I’m sure it did.

It began the first time someone said I was pretty—probably when I was a little girl—and I felt pleased.

Whether the person meant it doesn’t matter. It was probably one of my mother’s friends being nice. That’s what people were supposed to say to little girls—that they were pretty.

What matters is how it made me feel: seen, accepted, affirmed.

What matters is the notion it implanted in my mind: that I needed to be pretty to feel good about myself—and to be accepted.

This notion has been confirmed for decades by a culture that rewards the young and dismisses the old.

I’ve written about this before, so I won’t belabor all the ways society tells females that they should be the young and pretty. You can go on the internet and see for yourself.

It’s easy to blame society, but the real culprit lies within me.

It’s a sadness I feel when people look past me.

It’s wondering when “miss” became “ma’am” and why it still bothers me.

It’s realizing I’m one of the oldest people at work, when for years I was the youngest.

Somehow, I’ve been relegated to the invisible team, the one that plays in the shadows. I don’t want to be on it. I want to play in the sun.

I wish there was a way to go back, but there isn’t.