Do I Have To Look My Age?

I was walking through the neighborhood one day when, from behind a hedge, a dog started barking at me. A woman I couldn’t see quieted it down by saying, “It’s all right. It’s just an old lady.” “Who are you calling an old lady?” I thought. Then: “Well, I am an old lady. So why does it bother me so much to be called one?” What I want to hear is, “You’re sixty-five? You look 20 years younger.” And strangely, I do hear that sometimes. I guess I have my days. But it’s the dismissive comments that stick. One time a young boy saw me passing on the sidewalk and said, “Watch out for the old lady.” The time my wife’s uncle asked me how old I was, and when I told him, he said, “Wow. I thought you were much older.” Even Facebook started showing me photos of white-haired women I didn’t recognize, asking me, “Is this you?” It seems we white-haired women are interchangeable in the algorithm. Long after the incident with the woman and her dog, “just an old lady” echoed in my thoughts. It’s demoralizing, this casual ageism. It’s also embarrassing, to care so much about how I look. Looks are superficial. It’s what’s inside that counts, right? <a href="https://medium.com/crows-feet/do-i-have-to-look-my-age-c9b59dba8ccf">Visit Now</a>