Invisibility: Who Needs A Magic Cloak When You Can Just Get Old?

Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility looks like fun. Sneaking around, overhearing other people's secrets and  hanging out, what's not to like? But, Harry could become visible any time he wanted. It’s not so much fun when you don't have a choice. 

I know something about being invisible, it's kind of the story of my life.

When I was a kid, I was sick a lot.  Hospitals, transfusions, "procedures," the works. The thing is, when you’re a sick child you aren’t a person. You’re a disease. No one actually talks to you – they talk about you. Or over you. To your parents, to other doctors and  nurses. Not to you, because you’re a kid. And you’re sick.

I remained invisible as I got older because I was ordinary.  I wasn’t beautiful, brilliant or outgoing. I didn’t even act out in a particularly interesting way.  I was just… average.  

There’s almost nothing more invisible than a boring teenage girl. They’re everywhere. Really, you just have to look for them. They're there.

All of this invisibility led me to music. I love music. It spoke to me and helped me through being average, unexciting and unseen.

Later, when I worked in the business, it was an added bonus that I got to hang out with people who were extraordinary. Many were talented, dazzling and mesmerizing. I think I hoped a little, that by simply being in their orbit, some of that shine would rub off on me.

It didn’t. Though due to my invisibility, I have some great stories.  And I heard some spectacular music. So, it was a win-win.

I wore out my welcome in the music industry at the same time the whole business began to implode. So I returned to writing.  

Writing is almost by definition a career in invisibility. It’s our job to observe other people, unnoticed. I was made for this gig.

At the same time writers are our own harshest critics. A lot of what we create never sees daylight and goes directly to the recycle bin leaving no trace.

I used to actually look forward to receiving hate mail; it meant that not only was someone reading my writing; they were reacting to it. I wasn’t invisible after all!

Note: I’ve never gone so far as to resort to click-bait.  I’m not that desperate for affirmation of my existence.

Some writers are highly visible; celebrities in their own right. I’m not talking about the Kardasian types -  they can’t read, much less write. They hire ghostwriters, a breed of contractually defined invisible writers.

But occasionally scribes - through a combination of hard work, good publicists, desire and perfect timing – develop vibrant personas. I’m sure that Gloria Steinem, Stephen King and the late Maya Angelou were never invisible. 

Personally I wouldn’t know JK Rowling or RL Stine if they ran me over with a truck, but I bet they have presence. Lots of it.

'Course, none of the former fall into the most invisible category of all:  the single, middle-aged woman. We are the only creatures in the universe that leave no footprint. Think of us as the penguins of the human world. Interchangeable.

Since I’ve had a lifetime of hiding in the shadows, you’d think this would have made becoming old and unnoticed easier.  It did.

Invisibility should be freeing. You know, like Harry Potter’s cloak.  If I gain a few pounds, I may loathe myself, but since no one else notices, why should I care? Yet I still do. A lot.

And since clothing isn't designed for the middle-aged, while I’m rarely in fashion, it doesn’t matter. Right? It’s not like I go anywhere.

At least not very often. But the last time I did (in the company of a group of older, unseen broads like myself) I noticed that there were few other middle aged women. There were tons of young women, many of them with middle-aged men.  Who looked right through my friends and I.

The media doesn’t help. The only places that middle-aged women appear are in advertisements for incontinence, fibromyalgia (I don’t know what it is, but it looks tragic), and for a myriad of plastic surgeries.

When a TV show or movie portrays someone my age, it's as a character's grandmother. She's always depicted as feeble, clueless and with one foot in the grave.

 It wasn’t long ago that I realized that those ancient regulars  of reruns, “The Golden Girls” are supposed to be middle-aged. As was the Gloria Swanson character in “Sunset Boulevard.” Sigh. 

I don't recognize any of them in myself or my friends.

This doesn’t only hit me and my peers in the ego. That would be bad enough. But adding insult to injury, we’re practically unemployable.

Rarely will someone take a chance on hiring an older woman with experience and proven talent. Unskilled younger women are just so much cheaper. At least in the short term.

But our invisibility might just come in handy. I’m envisioning a sort of “Ocean’s Eleven” gang, except instead of handsome men, it will just be a bunch of my middle-aged female friends pulling off heists around the world.

It would solve our financial woes and no one would ever catch us. They’d never see us. Because we’re invisible.