I looked in the mirror today and I am older

Dealing with being middle-aged, brown and a woman

I’ve found myself in a place where I never imagined myself, which, in itself, is odd because of course, if I carried on being alive, I was going to be middle-aged and still brown and (probably) still a woman. Yes, I know that I could identify as a man or something else but let’s park that for one moment shall we – just to keep it simple? The point is that I’m still alive and my cells are still aging.

I’m intrigued. I wonder how other people, in particular other women, feel at this time? I’m trying to roll with it. I’ve started to get it into my head that when people pass me, they now see a ‘middle-aged’ person and not a young woman. That’s if they see anyone at all.

I notice that some older men still call women of all ages ‘girls’ but it just sounds wrong to me and it slightly confuses me for a split second as I forget that it is not the truth and then, quickly, the tiny thrill of hearing the word ‘girl’ aimed at me subsides and I feel a bit embarrassed inside and hope that no-one has noticed my slight enthusiasm for being so described, momentarily.

I’m grown up at last. I think wise thoughts and reflect on things more than I used to. The voice in my head sounds deeper and calmer. I’m loving this new me. Why couldn’t I have been like this before, instead of full of insecurities and awkwardness and emotional trip switches all over the place? This version of me is far more comfortable to live in.

The trouble is that fewer people seek out my new improved voice because, as I said, I’ve become kind of invisible. I’d heard that I would become so from various sources, but I never really fully believed it. I thought that the invisibility applied to other women and not me; not ME because everyone would surely want to hear my voice because I have important things to say in comparison to the others and say them in such a witty way.

Such arrogance, I now genuinely concede. But what should I do? What can I do? Looking at the army of talented and smart, younger people out there, should I support them instead: instead of being scared, from my invisible spot? Not instead but as well. I want to join forces with them in a kind of fairy God-mother way. They seem so wise already but inside I know they have so many doubts and are guessing their way forward, maybe not as blindly as people in pre-internet days, maybe more so.

Then I start to see my own invisibility as a strength. Maybe not being sucked into the vortex of self-doubt about wearing the right make-up or having the right shape is a very good thing indeed. Not that I ever recall feeling that I needed those things. Hold on: I do remember feeling that I was too fat. Is it just me though, or are people more insecure about their size, even though we are supposed to be past body-shaming?

And that’s the problem. We are supposed to be past so many things because the world has moved on. And the world HAS moved on because I remember when it was normal for women to earn half of what men do and when it was normal for skinheads to spit at me in the street because of my brown-ness. But really, we are not that far past those where we started. This is why I must redouble my efforts and have people see me and hear me whilst relishing the fact that I just don’t care if people think I’m a bit pushy. Because I need to be a bit pushy.

In this age of complexity, there is even more for me to do, to share, to try and fix with others. There is more need for slow-grown, resilient brains to work on alongside those raised online. There is filling in the shapes of other invisible women to do, to make them visible. I’m doing this, please join me.