Once again, you knocked it out of the park. I absolutely love that I discovered you while looking for people on just ahead of me on the path to making an incredible and life-changing move to a new country, but so much of what I keep coming back for is the stuff that isn't really tied to that narrow subject.
Such a great piece. I just wrote about something akin to this in my most recent blog (referenced Joan Didion seeing herself through the eyes of her husband until he died, then realizing to outsiders she was 40 years older than her 29-year-old internal self). Getting older, feeling invisible, not understanding why people perceive me as so much older than I perceive myself...all challenging. However, your point that this chapter brings with it the freedom to embrace our weird, authentic selves is an uplifting and important one. Your honesty and insights, as always, are deeply appreciated and oh-so-resonant.
Superb post, really enjoyed the many directions this went. Thank you. A few minutes after I read this, I saw a meme that said: "It's a good thing our bodies age slowly. It's so much easier to be horrified just a little bit each day." Thank you for the reminder that there is no horror in enjoying our aging bodies. I'm still happy to be along on my own human ride.
Whenever I feel super awkward in a social setting, I always try to remember that, high likelihood, lots of others are feeling the same. Takes the edge off!
I delightedly join the chorus celebrating the Olympics of Weird! As always, you've given me interesting things to think about. Here's one:
Now in my late 50's, I realize I was never aware of being an object of interest to the male gaze (or the female, for that matter, as a queer person). I don't feel that loss of attention, because I never noticed that I had it. I say "noticed", because one of my more pronounced characteristics is obliviousness. I never dated (ever!) because no one asked me out (the 16-year-old on the train home from university one year, who was on his way home from Oral Roberts prep school, doesn't count). It's always possible that I missed signs of interest during my self conscious, intellectual, overtly Christian youth. I drew the conclusion in my early teens that I wasn't attractive, in order to stop thinking about whether Prince Charming would ever appear with flowers and kisses (I could supply my own chocolate). At the time I assumed I should be expecting a prince, and was also enduring a grinding series of unreciprocated crushes: the prince was absolved for his absence, because he couldn't have noticed unattractive me in the first place, and I could neutralize future crushes with the same logic. The habit stuck, as temporarily useful self-defense strategies have a tendency to do long past their usefulness. Plus there's the whole thing where I turned out to be multisexual*, so I could have been sending mixed signals that also screened me from The Gaze. When my wife and I fell in love with each other's Weird, it came as a happy surprise to both of us. And here we are now in Portugal almost 38 years later, still working together on the project of making our best lives!
*"Bisexual" implies a gender binary, and that's right for those who are attracted to distinctly female- or male-presenting people but doesn't work for me and the variables of gender; the alternative term "omnisexual" can imply attraction to everybody when taken literally, which doesn't work for my literal mind. I kind of like "polysexual" better than "multi", but it could be confused with polyamory, which describes a practice (a way people live; something you do) rather than a quality (a way people are; something you feel/experience). I think about words and language a lot! Maybe that's why I married a linguist. ;)
Welcome to the Olympics Weirdos club, Abbie! I absolutely love your perspective. Thank you so much for sharing it--it's given me some new things to think about!
Wonderful way of describing older womanhood. Beautiful. I have had this exact conversation about becoming weird with another female friend who fears she is going to be a weird crazy old lady and I said “no you’re not!” To reassure her when I should have said, “let’s lean in to our weirdness, it’s what makes us beautiful”.
I want to know what SPECIFICALLY made you feel like you were getting weirder while you were at the dinner party! I have this internal dialog at pretty much every social function that doesn’t involve my very closest friends. I have it most at work or school-related social functions. Normally it’s something that I find really funny but no one else does and I can’t stop thinking about it and imagining weird alternate scenarios that are wildly inappropriate for work or school that I want to recite out loud but know enough not to. Not like I am imagining something sexual with a colleague or fellow parent or anything, more like something inappropriate in a 12-year-old kid way (potty or body humor)or that I do or say something crass or ridiculous that a civilized person would not. Or I eye roll at the entitlement or plastic surgery of the fellow parents at the bougie school. Do I want to know- what set your mind wheels going thinking that you are getting weirder??
Oh, it was awhile ago now so it's hard to recall particulars but mostly I remember thinking how much I hate making small talk with new people and that I found the new people to be kinda weird but maybe I was the one who was weird for thinking that because our mutual friend would not have included them if they were weird and why was I thinking the word "weird" over and over and OMG I just want to go home and put on my pajamas and read a book and wow I hate socializing so much. You know. That kind of internal monologue! Like, I am old enough now that I don't even want to bother or be bothered with all the social niceties of adulting. You know?
As far as I can tell the SF portion of the Olympic Weirdos has never waned. It still runs strong, though the song has--thankfully--made fewer and fewer appearances.
As an almost 67-yo-widow I say hell yeah. Olympics Weirdos for the win! There is SO much freedom in being an invisible old lady. And when you are a widow you are absolutely free from any attachment that matters. As Janice Joplin so pungently put it: another name for Freedom is nothing left to lose. When you are cut loose from those ties that bind you (sweetly, but still--), well. Then you are free to be yourself, and you had better go about finding out just who you are, without binding ties-- perhaps not an easy freedom, but a very worthwhile one. Thank you for your writing, which reminds me of my younger, more enmeshed, self. I think you are wiser than I was however. Cheers.
Enjoyed this mucho. Amen to "Once we were beautiful. Now we are ourselves." The chiropractor story had me slumped over laughing over my computer, so thanks as I was obviously in need of good comic relief today.
Yes, I feel this. Getting older, sometimes feeling invisible. Every once in awhile a girlfriend tells me I look beautiful. It's usually a girlfriend, not my spouse, who has pretty much forgotten I need to hear it. But it means as much from my gal-pal! I too appreciate your insights and clarity. Keep it coming!
I am also an Olympic Weirdo! I love that the kids leaned into what was supposed to be an insult and made it their own.
Once again, you knocked it out of the park. I absolutely love that I discovered you while looking for people on just ahead of me on the path to making an incredible and life-changing move to a new country, but so much of what I keep coming back for is the stuff that isn't really tied to that narrow subject.
Thank you. I'm glad you keep coming back!
Such a great piece. I just wrote about something akin to this in my most recent blog (referenced Joan Didion seeing herself through the eyes of her husband until he died, then realizing to outsiders she was 40 years older than her 29-year-old internal self). Getting older, feeling invisible, not understanding why people perceive me as so much older than I perceive myself...all challenging. However, your point that this chapter brings with it the freedom to embrace our weird, authentic selves is an uplifting and important one. Your honesty and insights, as always, are deeply appreciated and oh-so-resonant.
Superb post, really enjoyed the many directions this went. Thank you. A few minutes after I read this, I saw a meme that said: "It's a good thing our bodies age slowly. It's so much easier to be horrified just a little bit each day." Thank you for the reminder that there is no horror in enjoying our aging bodies. I'm still happy to be along on my own human ride.
Thanks for your thoughts Diane, and thanks too for your extra boost of support today.
Whenever I feel super awkward in a social setting, I always try to remember that, high likelihood, lots of others are feeling the same. Takes the edge off!
I delightedly join the chorus celebrating the Olympics of Weird! As always, you've given me interesting things to think about. Here's one:
Now in my late 50's, I realize I was never aware of being an object of interest to the male gaze (or the female, for that matter, as a queer person). I don't feel that loss of attention, because I never noticed that I had it. I say "noticed", because one of my more pronounced characteristics is obliviousness. I never dated (ever!) because no one asked me out (the 16-year-old on the train home from university one year, who was on his way home from Oral Roberts prep school, doesn't count). It's always possible that I missed signs of interest during my self conscious, intellectual, overtly Christian youth. I drew the conclusion in my early teens that I wasn't attractive, in order to stop thinking about whether Prince Charming would ever appear with flowers and kisses (I could supply my own chocolate). At the time I assumed I should be expecting a prince, and was also enduring a grinding series of unreciprocated crushes: the prince was absolved for his absence, because he couldn't have noticed unattractive me in the first place, and I could neutralize future crushes with the same logic. The habit stuck, as temporarily useful self-defense strategies have a tendency to do long past their usefulness. Plus there's the whole thing where I turned out to be multisexual*, so I could have been sending mixed signals that also screened me from The Gaze. When my wife and I fell in love with each other's Weird, it came as a happy surprise to both of us. And here we are now in Portugal almost 38 years later, still working together on the project of making our best lives!
*"Bisexual" implies a gender binary, and that's right for those who are attracted to distinctly female- or male-presenting people but doesn't work for me and the variables of gender; the alternative term "omnisexual" can imply attraction to everybody when taken literally, which doesn't work for my literal mind. I kind of like "polysexual" better than "multi", but it could be confused with polyamory, which describes a practice (a way people live; something you do) rather than a quality (a way people are; something you feel/experience). I think about words and language a lot! Maybe that's why I married a linguist. ;)
Welcome to the Olympics Weirdos club, Abbie! I absolutely love your perspective. Thank you so much for sharing it--it's given me some new things to think about!
Wonderful way of describing older womanhood. Beautiful. I have had this exact conversation about becoming weird with another female friend who fears she is going to be a weird crazy old lady and I said “no you’re not!” To reassure her when I should have said, “let’s lean in to our weirdness, it’s what makes us beautiful”.
I want to know what SPECIFICALLY made you feel like you were getting weirder while you were at the dinner party! I have this internal dialog at pretty much every social function that doesn’t involve my very closest friends. I have it most at work or school-related social functions. Normally it’s something that I find really funny but no one else does and I can’t stop thinking about it and imagining weird alternate scenarios that are wildly inappropriate for work or school that I want to recite out loud but know enough not to. Not like I am imagining something sexual with a colleague or fellow parent or anything, more like something inappropriate in a 12-year-old kid way (potty or body humor)or that I do or say something crass or ridiculous that a civilized person would not. Or I eye roll at the entitlement or plastic surgery of the fellow parents at the bougie school. Do I want to know- what set your mind wheels going thinking that you are getting weirder??
Oh, it was awhile ago now so it's hard to recall particulars but mostly I remember thinking how much I hate making small talk with new people and that I found the new people to be kinda weird but maybe I was the one who was weird for thinking that because our mutual friend would not have included them if they were weird and why was I thinking the word "weird" over and over and OMG I just want to go home and put on my pajamas and read a book and wow I hate socializing so much. You know. That kind of internal monologue! Like, I am old enough now that I don't even want to bother or be bothered with all the social niceties of adulting. You know?
Thank you for writing this thoughtful piece --from an aging and, well, somewhat sequestered former SFer in Lisboa :)
Aye. Men. Sister.
Fist bumps and fuck yeahs, my friend!
As far as I can tell the SF portion of the Olympic Weirdos has never waned. It still runs strong, though the song has--thankfully--made fewer and fewer appearances.
46th Avenue Olympics Weirdos 4-evah!!
Same experience at the chiropractor last week—and same mild embarrassment. Love this post!
OMG thank you so much for telling me this! You just made my day.
Thank you! Perfect for my 67 year old self. It does get easier to embrace the weirdo in you as you get older.
As an almost 67-yo-widow I say hell yeah. Olympics Weirdos for the win! There is SO much freedom in being an invisible old lady. And when you are a widow you are absolutely free from any attachment that matters. As Janice Joplin so pungently put it: another name for Freedom is nothing left to lose. When you are cut loose from those ties that bind you (sweetly, but still--), well. Then you are free to be yourself, and you had better go about finding out just who you are, without binding ties-- perhaps not an easy freedom, but a very worthwhile one. Thank you for your writing, which reminds me of my younger, more enmeshed, self. I think you are wiser than I was however. Cheers.
Enjoyed this mucho. Amen to "Once we were beautiful. Now we are ourselves." The chiropractor story had me slumped over laughing over my computer, so thanks as I was obviously in need of good comic relief today.
Yes, I feel this. Getting older, sometimes feeling invisible. Every once in awhile a girlfriend tells me I look beautiful. It's usually a girlfriend, not my spouse, who has pretty much forgotten I need to hear it. But it means as much from my gal-pal! I too appreciate your insights and clarity. Keep it coming!