I have to admit, I'm making progress. I still can't bend the wrist
too well, but I can easily turn my hand over. The splint hurts more than the
hand, so I must confess I'm typing without it. For the moment, anyway.
So Saturday night, I went out to dinner with my friend Andy. To
make a long story rather short, we ended up at Dixie’s on Grand….one of my favorite
places. Andy decided I needed a Hendrick's martini. I'm not martini
person...but this could change my mind. It was cucumber...and refreshing...and
really good. But the really fun event of the night was the girl (like the
junior son's age) and her boyfriend on the other side of Andy.
 |
| Fireman Andy |
When the boyfriend went off to find out about the shuttle bus to
Crashed Ice, she turned her attention to Andy. This girl-child is hitting on
Andy and she is attempting to make me disappear. She was
working so hard at getting him to focus on her that I just had to lean back to watch.
It was a total out of body experience. Now, Andy and I are about the same age.
We graduated high school the same year...1970, okay? Andy is silver-haired and one very
good-looking guy. Wonderfully oblivious to her "charms" (which I
thought were sorely lacking) Andy had the befuddled look down pat. He was diligently
trying to continue the rather interesting conversation we were having... but it
was kinda hard. Finally, thankfully, the boyfriend came back and removed her.
Laughing about it later, Andy said, “I saw you
drop into observer-mode.” He was right. That’s exactly what I did. I aided and
abetted this child by leaning back on the bar stool and functionally
disappearing from view.
Why would I do something like that? I rail against the
invisibility of widows all the time. It’s one aspect of my relatively new
status that drives me completely nutty.
That said, this invisibility stuff isn’t exactly an unusual
expectation. Take the GOP for example. They would be happy if all women of
intellect just disappeared. Just this past week, Cathrynn Brown, a state
representative in New Mexico, a shining light of neo-feminist thought, called
us all potential crime scenes. She actually wrote a bill stating anyone who got
an abortion after rape or incest was guilty of tampering with a crime scene and
could be prosecuted. Excuse me? We can now be objectified as locations?
Chugging along the same track, an op-ed piece in the NY Times (29JAN2013: The
Rise of the Permanent Temp Economy) discusses the “Kelly Girl” temp worker
as not a disappearing phenomenon, but rather as a model thriving today. This
stuff is scary. In 1958, a Kelly Girl exec told the NYT:
Instead of seeking to
replace “breadwinning” union jobs with low-wage temp work, temp agencies went
the culturally safer route: selling temp work for housewives who were
(allegedly) only working for pin money. As a Kelly executive told The New York
Times in 1958, “The typical Kelly Girl… doesn’t want full-time work, but she’s
bored with strictly keeping house. Or maybe she just wants to take a job until
she pays for a davenport or a new fur coat.”
That temp model has become
the staple of a whole lotta business today where the worker, even with
benefits, is invisible, disposable, and otherwise marginalized. And usually
women. The attitude just hasn’t kept up with the slogans and the rhetoric. And the reality hasn't either. Contract workers are not all well paid. Many work with little or no benefits and certainly no safety net.
On the other hand, maybe being a widow is a
bit like being a canary in a coal mine. We are too often invisible to our own communities and painfully aware of the atmosphere
that surrounds us. Other women often turn away, as if they could catch what we
have. But we’re still here and we refuse to throw ourselves on the funeral
pyre. That said, many of us are still not comfortable enough to stand on a chair and
yell, “HEY! I’M STILL FUNCTIONAL EVEN IF I DON’T HAVE A SPOUSE.”
I have no words of wisdom,
suggestions, or anything else to say about how to fix it. Once upon a time, I
was probably one of the guilty ones. What I can do, however, is spend my capital
making sure women in general aren’t reduced to invisibility. We have the right
to self-determination. We have the right to equal pay for equal work. We have
the right to apply for any job for which we are physically, mentally, or intellectually
capable of performing. We will not be defined by possession of a uterus. And we
will not be shoved aside because we are capable of bearing children.
And little girl at the bar….I
will not disappear because I have grey hair and years of experience. You think
I’m outré? Guess again, sweetie. You just dream about knowing what I already know.
Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
When feeling invisible, steal a glance in a mirror.
If you can see yourself, you're still here.
I would have taken the old "throw the martini in her face approach!!!"
ReplyDeleteNow that's funny! I didn't even think of that; must be my advanced age.
DeleteNot sure if Andy is "just a friend" or something nore but -- I hate to break it to you -- my gay-dar tells me that you and the girl-child are both going to be very disappointed.
ReplyDeleteBTW I recently made the last payment on the old davenport and am now condering retirement.
you lousy pro-abort scum. You will pay. You bum!
ReplyDeleteBills to make the uterus a "crime scene" and other variations of when life begins are just another example of the high school mentality of the latest crop of wacko GOP legislators. Those arguments belong in high school debate contests, not in statehouses for **serious** consideration as new law. Law enforcement agencies are already overwhelmed trying to catch real criminals with ever-dwindling resources, so who's going to enforce these laws if passed? Same for DAs charged with prosecuting them when court dockets are already overcrowded.
ReplyDeleteIf the Geriatric Obstructionist Party had any idea how REAL people live, they wouldn't have to resort to hot button issues like abortion. The irony being that at the same time Congress and state legs around the country are waging war on women, the GOP claims to be courting the female vote. Hello.
For what it's worth, being suddenly "invisible" to married friends because you've become a widow happens to divorced women, too. Despite the reason for your single status, you are now an Unattached Female and therefore can no longer be considered one of them, only as "competition" for the affections of their husbands.
As for the girl-child (unsuccessfully) hitting on Andy, I've always said youth is wasted on the young. Have a great day!
Thank you for this post. It resonates as I recall what my mother would say about life after my father died. He predeceased her by 15 years, ironically the same as their age difference. Your "Words of Wisdom" also apply to all women of every generation. I am under 40 and in that last few years, I had a child, lost my mother, left to manage the affairs of my 80+ year-old aunt and after a week of "taking a few shots" at work it was a nice reminder.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words. The invisibility part is a constant struggle, and sometimes in the places you least expect it. And it's easy to say all that stuff, but at the core, you still struggle.
DeleteBut not to worry; you are NOT alone.