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3WW: Average, neck, scratch: New beginnings; don't count me out. Take me seriously

May 14, 2008 By pia

Edwards was my first choice. Go Obama! Hopefully Edwards can explain to many why Obama’s health care plan makes so much more sense.
I’m supposed to be a “natural” Hillary supporter as I’m a middle aged New York Jewish woman with a graduate degree. I resent easy categorizations. That might be one of the many reasons I like Obama.

">Bone, thanks I guess for the words
••••••••••••••••••••
Any woman over 50 will tell you the neck doesn't lie. Nora Ephron wrote a whole book about it. I thought I was one of the fortunate few when 45 came and went, and I was still thin, never easily, and still had a good face. That, ten and a few years ago, was when 40 was still older though I was convinced it wasn't even the midpoint of youth.

Oh how I learned. I am so vain. When I gained weight and couldn't get it off no matter what I did I thought of taking to my bed for the rest of my life. But that seemed self-defeating and really suicidal and I am neither.

I had never been an envious or jealous person and I became both. I began to envy women who had been "merely average," and who had developed great exercise habits.

I moved from a very hilly area back to Manhattan and it took me a long time to realize that walking no longer cut it.

I had been working in social services and in my newest life, not in social services, I began meeting many women who would view me as "not competition." This was of course not acceptable.

I began to remake myself. For the first time in my life I had to pay attention to everything about me. It's not fun. I'm lucky. My face is still tight. I look better in longer hair, as long as it's straight, than in short hair.

I have reclaimed myself. I'm not a competitive person. I truly want to live in a world where people help each other. But in the years of my discontent I learned that women in certain industries talk a good game but in reality....

A book is coming out soon. The author is much younger than I am. We were in a class together. I wrote a story. Two weeks later she handed in an almost identical one. I don't know if it made past the first draft of her book but...To her I was nothing. Invisible. Somebody who didn't matter.

I was told to feel proud that I could "inspire." Why? What did that garner me?

I'm back in form and nobody will ever take me for invisible again. My writing will inspire and will profit me. Call me selfish, bitchy, single-minded. I don't care. Just don't pretend that I don't exist.

Scratch me and I bleed. I will never be a woman who has every line taken out. Who can't scratch her face for fear it will bring up lines often removed. I have earned my lines. I like them. As long as they stay in the background.

My neck? It will do.

Filed Under: 3WW, writers Tagged With: 3WW, A northerner moves to the south

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Comments

  1. gautami tripathy says

    May 14, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Oh, this is so familiar. And I just entered forties!

    😀

  2. paisley says

    May 14, 2008 at 11:53 am

    i always had it too easy,, no diet, no exercise,, just born that way,, and i am seriously considering living the rest of my life in the manor in which my body was born to be,, a bit over weight,, but fully functional…

    i do feel invisible,, but it is a warm safe place and i like it here…

  3. James Steerforth says

    May 14, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    Both entertaining and pertinent in several ways!

  4. G says

    May 14, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    Pia, I just happened to be on line in Century 21 with some of those whose faces just looked a little too plastic for me. But listening to the conversations, I was quite happy being me.

    I so related to this post. Wonderful.

  5. AnthonyNorth says

    May 14, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    ‘not competition’

    Love that line. Seems to me you’ve kept your personality just right, too 🙂

  6. pjd says

    May 14, 2008 at 11:38 pm

    Agree with AnthonyNorth. That was my favorite line. The whole piece builds up to the conclusion nicely.

  7. WriterKat says

    May 15, 2008 at 12:42 am

    Well written.

    I totally relate. I’ll be 40 in a few days, and what I took for granted most of my life, I have to work for now. No longer the “corporate cutie”. It’s odd. But never invisible. That comes with confidence within, which you rightfully have.

  8. texasblu says

    May 15, 2008 at 11:20 am

    I haven’t hit 40 yet, but I already have challenges that others say I’m too young to have. eh – we all have our issues in life. It is hard though to realize that youth doesn’t stay forever…. I still don’t feel as old as my teen says I am!

    As for inspiring – I don’t think you’re bitchy. That was just WRONG.

  9. Tammy says

    May 15, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    At 46 I can relate and have learned to accept my lines and floppy boobs as character builders. 😉

    You go girl!

  10. Tammy says

    May 15, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    At 46 I can so relate to this journey. I have learned to accept my lines and floppy boobs as character builders. 😉

    You go girl!

  11. mary says

    May 16, 2008 at 8:24 am

    Yes, I understand the invisible.

  12. Doug says

    May 16, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    That was a great post about moving forward.

    Does Obama’s healthcare proposal make sense?

  13. sage says

    May 17, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    I hate it when ideas are stolen! seeing those brown spots on the skin has been tough for me, they started appearing when turned 50

  14. TC says

    May 18, 2008 at 10:50 pm

    I don’t know that I can relate so much to this piece, as I never had the easy good looks – my brother got all those. He also got the confidence that went with them, and I’ll be honest: as he’s aged and found that it’s not as easy to continue to look like he used to, I’ve (sadly) found a bit of joy in watching him learn to live his life a little differently. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I guess the truth is we always wish things were a little easier, no? At the very least, a little more fair…

  15. San says

    May 20, 2008 at 8:40 am

    i hope i’ll feel the same way.. 🙂

  16. cooper says

    May 22, 2008 at 11:36 pm

    As the commenter above said I can only hope I’ll feel the same way.

    I still find it hard to believe all the thieving among writers. It is such a shame really.

    I haven’t claimed myself for the first time yet, still looking forward to that.

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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