An Old Biddy’s Rant
Allow me to state the obvious. Please.
Ageing is no fun at all. There. Gotten it off my chest. Wait, sorry, one more: especially for women.
When I was young, I did something (or didn’t do something, depending on your frame of reference) that, to this day, fills me with shame. It was at a dinner party hosted by a (ex)boyfriend’s boss. Said boyfriend was a creative at a major advertising company, so the table was populated mostly with his colleagues, like a scene straight out of Mad Men. As I arrived late with my flatmate — a news anchor with a local TV station and therefore a bit of a minor celebrity — we ended up sitting at the penultimate end of this long table. Two empty seats were next to us.
The final guests arrived and they were a couple from Australia. The husband had just joined this firm and the dinner was partially a “Welcome to Singapore” for them both. Really, more for him. They were in their early to mid 40s I think — and definitely looked to be the oldest people at the table. He was gregarious and fitted right in. His wife struggled. She looked like a fish out of water — a sensible looking woman with smart, sensible clothes, thrown into the midst of over-achieving 20-somethings - the girls in their clubbing outfits, the guys casual in their jeans and T-shirts - all already halfway to inebriation, and none needing it to cast aside any inhibitions. They were loud and raucous, probably not the kind of corporate dinner party she was used to. Before long, her husband was summoned further up the long table where the boss held court, a chair helpfully pulled up for him, leaving his wife behind.
It must have been awful for her. The well-brought-up side of me could see her discomfort and wanted to alleviate it. So my flatmate and I started chatting with her. She fixated on her misery, and within minutes we already knew her homesickness, that she wasn’t sure about moving, that it was her husband’s idea, that she can’t seem to settle in, that she wasn’t sure if this is where she wanted to raise her kids, and that she was lonely.
Looking back, I think she was just grateful to have someone listen, and unthinkingly, started to spill her guts. But the ugly side of my youth began to take over. I remember thinking she was such a downer and was pathetic not to embrace this wonderful adventure she was on. I also remember thinking ‘when I am old, I’d never be like that.’
The arrogance of youth. I should have known there’d be some karmic comeuppance.
I caught my flatmate’s eye and realised he was thinking the same thing: let’s get out of here! Making our excuses to our hosts, we bolted away — leaving the poor woman sitting at the end of the table, feeling even more alone.
I was 28 years old then — surely old enough to know better, yet I suppose too young to pay any attention to the creeping voice of wisdom. Now, as an older woman of 54, and having moved a few times with a child in tow, I often find myself remembering this lady, and regretting that I did not show her more kindness and empathy. Husband’s industry is similarly filled with young and confident people, just like this lady, and it is intimidating for a stay-at-home-mom/trailing-spouse to feel like one fits in. Or that one is quite good enough, dynamic enough, smart enough, pretty enough, youthful enough. One simply isn’t enough. I now know how she must have felt sitting at that table.
This sense of being lacking increases with age when, for women, we start to disappear. I remember the first time I realised I did not even register in a man’s consciousness. I was in Hong Kong, walking along the bridge that connected Prince Building to The Landmark. There was a young woman — I’d say in her late twenties — walking a little ahead of me. When we both reached the glass doors that led into The Landmark, a man ahead of us held the door open for her, and then let it slam in my face. It was a sobering moment.
This is just me being weird. It happens to many older women when youth is around. On a separate day, at the same location, there was a group of young professionals, 3 men and two women, walking ahead of me. The women were both wheeling small suitcases (carry-ons) behind them. One woman was in her 20s, the other looked to be in her 40s. They came to a set of stairs, all three men turned around and practically tripped over themselves trying to help their young colleague — not one of them remembered the older woman, who was struggling to carry her bag up the stairs. Not one. It was only after the young woman’s carry-on was safely deposited at the top of the stairs did one of the men suddenly realise the older woman was struggling with hers and rushed forward to assist. By then, she had made it up all by herself. I heard the young man (the other two were oblivious — who raised them? Wolves?) apologise to the older colleague. At least he was ashamed — but I’m afraid the sting had landed despite her best assurances to the contrary.
Being forced to be the Invisible Woman isn’t heroic . Yet there are worse things — like being thought of as old by others we think are older. A good friend of mine shared her mortifying story of being offered a seat on the subway by a woman whom she had thought was older than she. It was the beginning of the workday, during peak commuting hour, and she’d got onto the crowded train and selected a spot to stand. She’d noticed that seated by where she stood was a woman whom she had unconsciously registered as being an older woman — older than she was. Ancient even. Said woman proceeded to get up and offered my friend her seat. Completely taken aback, she responded the only way one could while in shock — she refused, loudly and vociferously. The woman, instead of letting it go, insisted on inflicting her kindness, which in turn caused my flustered friend to refuse with even greater peevishness. By this time, the entire carriage had turned to gawk. The stand-off ended with the well-meaning lady sitting back down, and my friend forced to remain where she was (as it was too crowded to move anywhere else) for the duration of her painful, humiliating and demoralising 45-minute journey to her stop.
It is in our attempts to escape these two kinds of disparagement that the beauty industry makes its most money. A quick stop at any local drugstore will see aisle upon aisle of skin care and cosmetics all promising to keep ageing at bay. Any magazine worth its salt devotes pages to ads promising older women of a miracle diet to help them shed those post-baby pounds. There are ads to help rid us of loose skin, age spots, and wrinkles (did you know there is such a thing called kninkles? It’s the wrinkly skin on one’s knees. I don’t believe it is in the Oxford dictionary, but trust me, in the female-ageing vernacular, it is a real word). We are offered botox to plump, lasers to minimise, implants to enlarge, peroxide to whiten. There are even products to help older women not smell…ahem…down there.
Hope is big business.
Sure, there are internet memes and shares that ‘celebrate’ all the amazing youthful things old people can do. You know what the problem is with that? It’s that these stories get shared in a sad attempt to make us old folks feel better, and spread … wait for it..that’s right! Hope. That must be the original four-letter word.
There is nothing hopefully youthful about receding hairlines, memory loss, shaky hands and a new found fear of the dark. Don’t even get me started on the vision taking a schizophrenic turn — one minute one can’t see what’s far, next one can’t see what’s near; or the traitorous noise we old people make as we plunge ourselves down on a sofa, or heave up from it. Let’s not forget the involuntary flatulence — oh the shame of it! Or the leakage when we laugh, sneeze or cough. Yeah, that happens.
I could go on, but that would be a grumpy-old-person thing to do, wouldn’t it?
