I don't feel less "seen" now, at 60, than I did earlier. I don't really think about my age, at least not in a negative way, except for not being quite as able physically as when I was younger. As to my hair, I stopped dying it several years ago. I was blonde as a child, brunette for most of my life, but recently I seem to be turning blonde again (except my bangs, which are white), which is peculiar but I like it.
Thanks - I don't know that I feel seen, exactly, I just don't feel much different than I always did. I mean, I probably do, but these things evolve slowly over time so I probably just haven't noticed; anyway, it's not something I think about. Also probably the kind of work I do makes a difference, as I don't really have co-workers.
My hair is now basically white (at the front), and brown and blonde (I assume eventually it'll all be white). When I put it up the blonde sometimes separates into streaks, and twice recently I had women behind me in the checkout at the grocery ask me where I get it done, which makes me laugh - I cut it myself in the bathroom, I don't enjoy going to the hairdresser and this way takes about five minutes. Sometimes I do a good job, sometimes not, in which case it goes up until it grows out. I lived in a rainforest for a few years and that stuff wasn't a priority during that time, and I just never got the hang of it again when I came home.
Personally, one of the most relaxing things I do for myself is go to the hairdresser. I don't do it often, as for some reason the older I get the longer it takes for my hair to grow, even taking biotin. :) I bet the coloring in your hair looks simply gorgeous.
I used to dye my brown hair into a deeper chestnut color when I was young.
I went through a brief phase plucking out my greys about 8 years ago. Then I let go. In my good moods I call them the tinsel on the tree of me, because they sparkle and shine. Sometimes they bug me, but my husband likes them (he’s older than me so he was already grey).
I’m just really bad at upkeep. I think it does mean I benefit from a little added color on my lips, and I don’t usually wear makeup. So I bought one for fun (Tangee, a vintage brand that changes color to match your skin tone supposedly…. It’s okay… anything somewhat sheer is fine).
How will you know when you are being “seen and heard?” I don’t want to be a smart alec —with the caveat that I am young, and because I must confess I do feel seen and heard, quite a bit because of my looks and my youth—but could you define what it would mean to be appreciated as you would like?
And after a certain age, do you really still want to be esteemed as if you were much younger?
I’m just trying to understand because I get this sense a lot from older women, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
I’m not even sure how much I like being 26. I’m very very anxious and depressed much of the time. I’m very unhappy. And sure it’s nice to be admired and considered handsome. But it’s hard to imagine that when I’m past middle age I’m going to miss being young, not least because I’m nice looking. Fuck it. It’s nice sure, and i’m sure your beauty is much more important to you if you’re female. But it’s very little consolation, let alone an asset if you’re as diffident and inept and otherwise self-crippling as I am. Perhaps by giving me a nice face, it’s even a cruel way of nature mocking the rest of my inadequacies.
Sometimes I’m afraid that older people are overrating youth, but on the other hand maybe they just had a better youth than my poor sad self. I don’t know what to think. Older people will tell me that when they were young they “didn’t have a care in the world.” That’s just not my experience at all. I don’t know what they’re referring to. Parties? Sex? Romance? Dates? Traveling. I have never been able to enjoy or had any desire to partake of any of these things, not for any great length of time. Older people make me feel guilty that i am wasting my youth and opportunities advantages or whatever, but frankly I have no idea what people are talking about exactly when they start idealizing youth in this sense. I have a hunch that you would resent me too. What the hell
First of all. I do not resent you. You are my son's age. I am sure you have people in your life who value you greatly. Every part of life is filled with anxiety and times when we are unsure. Everyone has a lot of worth, even by the simple fact taht they are human beings, and I hope that you are able to talk to someone to help you realize how important you are.
What happens with women especially as we age, is that our experiences and our value are ignored not just by society but a lot of times by those around us. I would say that if you have an older woman in your life be it a mother, aunt, cousin, or grandparent, listen to them. Ask their opinion and value their wisdom from a life lived.
Of course it doesn't mean you have to agree with their advice or do what they said, but it does pay to listen to those who have experienced more of the world than you have.
Also don't let anyone make you feel guilty about how you chose to live your life. Not everyone needs to party, travel or have multiple partners. And by the way being 26 means you are just beginning your adventure of life. Dont worry what others think. You do you. You do what makes you happy. Your life is your adventure and no one else's.
The pep talk is generous. But it doesn’t answer my question which I could have posed more directly, rather than self-indulgently waxing self-pityingly: why do you crave to be noticed as if you were much younger than you are? Do you need it anymore after all these years? And maybe your youth isn’t as dour and bleak as mine, but are you quite sure you would like to relive it again, so to speak? What’s so good about being noticed anyway? It’s a little embarrassing if too many people are noticing you. Then people are so overwhelmed by you that they don’t even listen to what you say or pay attention to your other qualities, because of the halo effect. It annoys me sometimes that people intuit that I’m good-natured and “sweet” and “nice” and a “gentleman” merely from conversation in passing. Because if they actually knew me, then they would know how judgmental and selfish I am and their appraisal of my character would be totally different. But people let appearances deceive them and they take things at face value.
That being said my mom is in her early sixties, and she feels like people don’t notice her anymore. Meghan Daum who’s 50-something talks about this too on her Substack sometimes. And I think I know what you all mean. And I think it must be hard to be an aging woman when society is so much tougher on women’s looks than it is on men’s. And female biology is very cruel. You go from one stage that further robs you of your fertile qualities to another. And men always want younger women. Like I’m sure that sucks, but god you can’t expect to get noticed like you’re 25 forever right? That’s life. It’s not society’s fault. And men get old and panic about their age and have midlife crises and their experience isn’t that different, all things being equal. My dad had a midlife crisis that caused him to seek extramarital relations with young girls that precipitated my parents’ recent divorce. By the way I don’t conceive of my life as an empty “adventure.” Hardly anyone’s life is an adventure. A worthy life may be punctuated with what you might call adventures if it’s not too grandiose to use the word, but while talking it up is fine for giving young people encouragement, real life is not a zesty adventure even for the most fortunate and privileged of us. Most of the time your life, regardless of your age, is solitary laborious lonely and dissatisfying drudgery. I don’t know if you’re religious— I certainly am not—but for all intents and purposes your life is not a blessing that a benevolent deity bestows on you that you are free to make of what you will. I’m very tired of meeting people in public who will have the audacious lack of taste to tell me that they are “blessed.” Your potential is hardwired in your genetic code at birth, everyone of us with a preprogrammed ceiling on who we can become and what we can achieve. We are the playthings of fate. That you can make your life an adventure is a ridiculous illusion
Let me see if I can explain this a little better. Being seen is not merely about being looked at and being noticed. Its about being important. Take a look at most advertising in today's world. When you see things important to women they use young models or actresses. The only time you see an older woman is if there is something medically wrong- take this pill or eat this type of yogurt. But older women like nice things as well, nice clothes, makeup and to go out to eat etc. Advertising shows you where society puts its importance. We are not part of that.
Also being seen means being respected for our thoughts and deeds. Many of us may have a myriad of accomplishments but our body of work maybe ignored and what we have done is not cited o=and we are not called upon by colleagues anymore for import.
None of us want to be young again. Not in any way, shape, or form. Been there done that. Do not need to do that again.
Now if there are some who wish for their youth, it could be because parts of their youth were happier than their present. Maybe they have medical issues that didn't exist when they were young so they wish for that time, or they wish to go bad and not make the same mistakes they made, and fix what happened in their youth which may have caused problems in the present. Maybe they wish to go back to their youth because they miss a person who has died. There are many reasons some wish to be a younger age.
But wanting to be seen does not mean they wish to be younger.
And when I say your life is your "adventure," I mean it is yours to do with as you wish. It is not for someone else to tell you what you should be doing at any given moment. Your life is yours to choose how you wish to live it. Some may think you should be doing "X" but you want to do "Y". But the choice is yours. And your life is not an empty adventure. But since it has not been fully lived, because you are only 26 years old it is unwritten and you have a right to write your own story.
I take your point. But I am inclined to think that society now has become, and it is still becoming, more friendly to older women than ever. It seems to me that Instagram and social media is filled with older female fashion influencers and commentators who are very popular largely with their own age cohort. Older people are also represented more in ads, not least because of activists I think. But the internet, aging societies, and a more forgiving if not permissive culture, has given women a voice and a confidence even they have never had before. I can even argue that your ability to blog about your age on Substack is a privilege of this cultural shift. Of course as it has always been, you will get more attention if you’re a younger prettier woman, but it has gotten exponentially easier recently to be old and even respected for it. Agree?
I agree society is aging, but it still is not accepting aging women. Maybe aging men, yet at the same time ageism is a reality and those over 50, both male and female, if fired from a job have a hard time finding work. I know many people who are in limbo using up their retirement money while looking for jobs while in their 50s and 60s.
The internet may give us a place to voice our discord, but everyone is allowed to have a voice on the internet. It is a privilege to be able to write on substack or blog anywhere, but it is also a business model that makes money for the company. If they began to ban certain people, then they would not make as much money. And yes, if older women were so anathema they wouldn't lose money by keeping them off their platform.
I don't see the older female fashion influencers. While Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue is closing in on 70, she surrounds herself with youth. How many older women have graced the cover of Vogue or Elle magazine? Few if any.
The interesting thing about that, is that according to economists the richest segment of society is women over 50. They have the largest amount of disposable cash to spend. Yet we are ignored except for a few entrepreneurs who are also older women-Bobbi Brown, the makeup artist, for example.
For what it’s worth, I think women can look beautiful basically until they die. To me there is nothing more elevating for my spirits than to see a smartly dressed older or an elderly woman. I think that elderly women can dress and carry themselves with a flourish where their age is even an almost aristocratic mark of distinction. If that sounds complimentary, I think the observation is a little diminished by the fact that I am a uniquely imaginative and creative person whose melancholic tendency also draws him to older women anyway. Most other men would never notice these women because they’re old, but these men are uncultivated buffoons. But for example I rang up a woman (I work in a grocery store) who had to be in her mid seventies yesterday in a black coat with black fur lining the cuffs and lapels and sunglasses. She had a stylish shoulder length hair cut with hair dyed brown. And she struck me as gorgeous. Gorgeous for her age at least. If you have a taste for elegant dress as I do, age especially for a woman can be an enhancement. I’m not saying I was attracted to her sexually. She must have been in her 70s. But the point is her clothes and manner were striking to me. And perhaps other men wouldn’t but I certainly noticed her. Isn’t it only actually important to be noticed by the select group of people who will notice you, who have that refinement, not the wider vulgar culture?
I’m jumping in here but I just want to thank you for being observant about women of different ages (noticing what Meghan Daum has said, etc).
I’m sorry your 20s are an anxious time for you. I’m mid 40s and I think anxiety affects a lot of people these days. We’re never free from it entirely. We just learn to manage it.
You can never be free from it. It’s serious folly that so many people young people and therapists these days, especially, have the notion that anxiety is some kind of evil that drugs can cure and liberate you from. Anxiety is a condition of existence. Maybe you can say, it is the human condition, summarized in a word. It’s as old and ineradicable as anything.
I don't feel less "seen" now, at 60, than I did earlier. I don't really think about my age, at least not in a negative way, except for not being quite as able physically as when I was younger. As to my hair, I stopped dying it several years ago. I was blonde as a child, brunette for most of my life, but recently I seem to be turning blonde again (except my bangs, which are white), which is peculiar but I like it.
Your hair color sounds quite lovely. I am glad you still feel seen.
Thanks - I don't know that I feel seen, exactly, I just don't feel much different than I always did. I mean, I probably do, but these things evolve slowly over time so I probably just haven't noticed; anyway, it's not something I think about. Also probably the kind of work I do makes a difference, as I don't really have co-workers.
My hair is now basically white (at the front), and brown and blonde (I assume eventually it'll all be white). When I put it up the blonde sometimes separates into streaks, and twice recently I had women behind me in the checkout at the grocery ask me where I get it done, which makes me laugh - I cut it myself in the bathroom, I don't enjoy going to the hairdresser and this way takes about five minutes. Sometimes I do a good job, sometimes not, in which case it goes up until it grows out. I lived in a rainforest for a few years and that stuff wasn't a priority during that time, and I just never got the hang of it again when I came home.
Personally, one of the most relaxing things I do for myself is go to the hairdresser. I don't do it often, as for some reason the older I get the longer it takes for my hair to grow, even taking biotin. :) I bet the coloring in your hair looks simply gorgeous.
I used to dye my brown hair into a deeper chestnut color when I was young.
I went through a brief phase plucking out my greys about 8 years ago. Then I let go. In my good moods I call them the tinsel on the tree of me, because they sparkle and shine. Sometimes they bug me, but my husband likes them (he’s older than me so he was already grey).
I’m just really bad at upkeep. I think it does mean I benefit from a little added color on my lips, and I don’t usually wear makeup. So I bought one for fun (Tangee, a vintage brand that changes color to match your skin tone supposedly…. It’s okay… anything somewhat sheer is fine).
How will you know when you are being “seen and heard?” I don’t want to be a smart alec —with the caveat that I am young, and because I must confess I do feel seen and heard, quite a bit because of my looks and my youth—but could you define what it would mean to be appreciated as you would like?
And after a certain age, do you really still want to be esteemed as if you were much younger?
I’m just trying to understand because I get this sense a lot from older women, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
I’m not even sure how much I like being 26. I’m very very anxious and depressed much of the time. I’m very unhappy. And sure it’s nice to be admired and considered handsome. But it’s hard to imagine that when I’m past middle age I’m going to miss being young, not least because I’m nice looking. Fuck it. It’s nice sure, and i’m sure your beauty is much more important to you if you’re female. But it’s very little consolation, let alone an asset if you’re as diffident and inept and otherwise self-crippling as I am. Perhaps by giving me a nice face, it’s even a cruel way of nature mocking the rest of my inadequacies.
Sometimes I’m afraid that older people are overrating youth, but on the other hand maybe they just had a better youth than my poor sad self. I don’t know what to think. Older people will tell me that when they were young they “didn’t have a care in the world.” That’s just not my experience at all. I don’t know what they’re referring to. Parties? Sex? Romance? Dates? Traveling. I have never been able to enjoy or had any desire to partake of any of these things, not for any great length of time. Older people make me feel guilty that i am wasting my youth and opportunities advantages or whatever, but frankly I have no idea what people are talking about exactly when they start idealizing youth in this sense. I have a hunch that you would resent me too. What the hell
This is a very interesting Substack. I like it.
First of all. I do not resent you. You are my son's age. I am sure you have people in your life who value you greatly. Every part of life is filled with anxiety and times when we are unsure. Everyone has a lot of worth, even by the simple fact taht they are human beings, and I hope that you are able to talk to someone to help you realize how important you are.
What happens with women especially as we age, is that our experiences and our value are ignored not just by society but a lot of times by those around us. I would say that if you have an older woman in your life be it a mother, aunt, cousin, or grandparent, listen to them. Ask their opinion and value their wisdom from a life lived.
Of course it doesn't mean you have to agree with their advice or do what they said, but it does pay to listen to those who have experienced more of the world than you have.
Also don't let anyone make you feel guilty about how you chose to live your life. Not everyone needs to party, travel or have multiple partners. And by the way being 26 means you are just beginning your adventure of life. Dont worry what others think. You do you. You do what makes you happy. Your life is your adventure and no one else's.
The pep talk is generous. But it doesn’t answer my question which I could have posed more directly, rather than self-indulgently waxing self-pityingly: why do you crave to be noticed as if you were much younger than you are? Do you need it anymore after all these years? And maybe your youth isn’t as dour and bleak as mine, but are you quite sure you would like to relive it again, so to speak? What’s so good about being noticed anyway? It’s a little embarrassing if too many people are noticing you. Then people are so overwhelmed by you that they don’t even listen to what you say or pay attention to your other qualities, because of the halo effect. It annoys me sometimes that people intuit that I’m good-natured and “sweet” and “nice” and a “gentleman” merely from conversation in passing. Because if they actually knew me, then they would know how judgmental and selfish I am and their appraisal of my character would be totally different. But people let appearances deceive them and they take things at face value.
That being said my mom is in her early sixties, and she feels like people don’t notice her anymore. Meghan Daum who’s 50-something talks about this too on her Substack sometimes. And I think I know what you all mean. And I think it must be hard to be an aging woman when society is so much tougher on women’s looks than it is on men’s. And female biology is very cruel. You go from one stage that further robs you of your fertile qualities to another. And men always want younger women. Like I’m sure that sucks, but god you can’t expect to get noticed like you’re 25 forever right? That’s life. It’s not society’s fault. And men get old and panic about their age and have midlife crises and their experience isn’t that different, all things being equal. My dad had a midlife crisis that caused him to seek extramarital relations with young girls that precipitated my parents’ recent divorce. By the way I don’t conceive of my life as an empty “adventure.” Hardly anyone’s life is an adventure. A worthy life may be punctuated with what you might call adventures if it’s not too grandiose to use the word, but while talking it up is fine for giving young people encouragement, real life is not a zesty adventure even for the most fortunate and privileged of us. Most of the time your life, regardless of your age, is solitary laborious lonely and dissatisfying drudgery. I don’t know if you’re religious— I certainly am not—but for all intents and purposes your life is not a blessing that a benevolent deity bestows on you that you are free to make of what you will. I’m very tired of meeting people in public who will have the audacious lack of taste to tell me that they are “blessed.” Your potential is hardwired in your genetic code at birth, everyone of us with a preprogrammed ceiling on who we can become and what we can achieve. We are the playthings of fate. That you can make your life an adventure is a ridiculous illusion
Let me see if I can explain this a little better. Being seen is not merely about being looked at and being noticed. Its about being important. Take a look at most advertising in today's world. When you see things important to women they use young models or actresses. The only time you see an older woman is if there is something medically wrong- take this pill or eat this type of yogurt. But older women like nice things as well, nice clothes, makeup and to go out to eat etc. Advertising shows you where society puts its importance. We are not part of that.
Also being seen means being respected for our thoughts and deeds. Many of us may have a myriad of accomplishments but our body of work maybe ignored and what we have done is not cited o=and we are not called upon by colleagues anymore for import.
None of us want to be young again. Not in any way, shape, or form. Been there done that. Do not need to do that again.
Now if there are some who wish for their youth, it could be because parts of their youth were happier than their present. Maybe they have medical issues that didn't exist when they were young so they wish for that time, or they wish to go bad and not make the same mistakes they made, and fix what happened in their youth which may have caused problems in the present. Maybe they wish to go back to their youth because they miss a person who has died. There are many reasons some wish to be a younger age.
But wanting to be seen does not mean they wish to be younger.
And when I say your life is your "adventure," I mean it is yours to do with as you wish. It is not for someone else to tell you what you should be doing at any given moment. Your life is yours to choose how you wish to live it. Some may think you should be doing "X" but you want to do "Y". But the choice is yours. And your life is not an empty adventure. But since it has not been fully lived, because you are only 26 years old it is unwritten and you have a right to write your own story.
I wrote this a few years ago:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/would-you-like-your-20-year-old-self/
I take your point. But I am inclined to think that society now has become, and it is still becoming, more friendly to older women than ever. It seems to me that Instagram and social media is filled with older female fashion influencers and commentators who are very popular largely with their own age cohort. Older people are also represented more in ads, not least because of activists I think. But the internet, aging societies, and a more forgiving if not permissive culture, has given women a voice and a confidence even they have never had before. I can even argue that your ability to blog about your age on Substack is a privilege of this cultural shift. Of course as it has always been, you will get more attention if you’re a younger prettier woman, but it has gotten exponentially easier recently to be old and even respected for it. Agree?
I agree society is aging, but it still is not accepting aging women. Maybe aging men, yet at the same time ageism is a reality and those over 50, both male and female, if fired from a job have a hard time finding work. I know many people who are in limbo using up their retirement money while looking for jobs while in their 50s and 60s.
The internet may give us a place to voice our discord, but everyone is allowed to have a voice on the internet. It is a privilege to be able to write on substack or blog anywhere, but it is also a business model that makes money for the company. If they began to ban certain people, then they would not make as much money. And yes, if older women were so anathema they wouldn't lose money by keeping them off their platform.
I don't see the older female fashion influencers. While Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue is closing in on 70, she surrounds herself with youth. How many older women have graced the cover of Vogue or Elle magazine? Few if any.
The interesting thing about that, is that according to economists the richest segment of society is women over 50. They have the largest amount of disposable cash to spend. Yet we are ignored except for a few entrepreneurs who are also older women-Bobbi Brown, the makeup artist, for example.
For what it’s worth, I think women can look beautiful basically until they die. To me there is nothing more elevating for my spirits than to see a smartly dressed older or an elderly woman. I think that elderly women can dress and carry themselves with a flourish where their age is even an almost aristocratic mark of distinction. If that sounds complimentary, I think the observation is a little diminished by the fact that I am a uniquely imaginative and creative person whose melancholic tendency also draws him to older women anyway. Most other men would never notice these women because they’re old, but these men are uncultivated buffoons. But for example I rang up a woman (I work in a grocery store) who had to be in her mid seventies yesterday in a black coat with black fur lining the cuffs and lapels and sunglasses. She had a stylish shoulder length hair cut with hair dyed brown. And she struck me as gorgeous. Gorgeous for her age at least. If you have a taste for elegant dress as I do, age especially for a woman can be an enhancement. I’m not saying I was attracted to her sexually. She must have been in her 70s. But the point is her clothes and manner were striking to me. And perhaps other men wouldn’t but I certainly noticed her. Isn’t it only actually important to be noticed by the select group of people who will notice you, who have that refinement, not the wider vulgar culture?
Nice article by the way. I just read it.
My wife and I recently entered the winter of our lives and she has let her hair go grey. And she is so cute. She drives me crazy in a good way.
😊
I’m jumping in here but I just want to thank you for being observant about women of different ages (noticing what Meghan Daum has said, etc).
I’m sorry your 20s are an anxious time for you. I’m mid 40s and I think anxiety affects a lot of people these days. We’re never free from it entirely. We just learn to manage it.
You can never be free from it. It’s serious folly that so many people young people and therapists these days, especially, have the notion that anxiety is some kind of evil that drugs can cure and liberate you from. Anxiety is a condition of existence. Maybe you can say, it is the human condition, summarized in a word. It’s as old and ineradicable as anything.