the mystery of the disappearing woman

One morning on the way to work, I actually got a seat on the train.. this was way before any social distancing became the norm

Getting a seat on a crowded train at peak hour is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow.

As I moved to the seat, usually the end one which is the seat for the old, pregnant or people with kids, a youngish looking man also headed to the seat but when he saw me he backed off and let me have the seat.

I don’t know how I feel about that… on one hand I am delighted that the youngish man let a woman have the seat but then I also questioned if I was looking my age? Vanity hit me like a ton of bricks!

thats me.. with my silver streaks

I stopped colouring my hair after my older son got married in Aug 2016, while the grey is not so pronounced, it’s there, I have flecks of silver hair running through my mane.

I struggle with knowing I am getting old.  The men I used to look at and ogle are now older, like me,  and there are a lot of men my age that have not aged well… so I look at the younger men for my fix of a visual feast, an older woman looking and appreciating young virile men might be construed as distasteful.

Older men tend to date much younger women, and older women are still unsure about dating younger men as sexism and ageism is more pronounced towards the older women.  While I want to look my age and be proud of the life I have lived, 

I fear I will be pushed aside and made to feel that my life experiences are not worth the time or trouble… 

it’s not just in the dating world, it’s at work, in public, and yes even with family.  

The odds of me getting paid for my experience and worth or getting a date with a decent man my own age is pretty limited. I still will not bow to pressure and colour my hair though.

With the odds stacked against us, no wonder so many of us are diagnosed with anxiety, depression and suicide rates are up amongst the older generation. (see here for an article in 2018)

I already am a minority in my own country, and a minority within a minority (north Indian Sikh within the Indian diaspora in Singapore), now with ageism and sexism thrown into the equation, I guess my odds just got a whole lot worse.  Am I  disappearing and becoming invisible....