Fear of seeming stupid holds you back

Our youngest and I had a four-hour long phone call the last time we talked. A small part of it had to do with her not wanting to appear naive should she take a certain course of action in her relationships.

I said, "You and I, we've been valued for our brains more than our looks most of our lives. So I get it. Having people think less of us in that respect cuts close to the bone."

But many women, once we cross into our 50s, don't care what people think of us. That is, of the surface things they associate with us. Of course we care that we're seen as people of integrity, competence, stout-heartedness, all that. It's being the individuals we've grown into that we take pride in, and that hard-earned pride is an armor.

Being thought of as stupid takes many forms.

"Eccentric" was how a young co-worker at CSU Stanislaus once assessed me. Considering she was a graphic designer, and presumably creative, I chose to take that as a compliment 😏 even though I wasn't quite 50 yet.

"So silly, but so me!" was how a potential customer my age reacted to the Titania gown I sewed for our lyrical performance at the Art to Wear show a couple of years ago. She couldn't bring herself to buy it, and her husband talked her out of it with an appeal to the practical: "It's fall, and that looks like spring." As if spring would never come around again...

"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" was how my journalism professor nicknamed me, perennially tardy and always cheerful upon arrival.

And then there was "You're stupid," plain and direct, leveled at me by the Kaufman and Broad maintenance troubleshooter to whom I confessed that I'd figured out that the vent over the oven of our new home (28 years ago) had a switch that was "Off" in the middle, "Low" to the left and "High" to the right.

Now that one, when it sank in only after he left, stung. But I was 28, and me-at-50-and-beyond was another lifetime away.

The nice thing about the age I am now is that no one has called me stupid, or any of its derivatives, for a very long time. They call me "ma'am", "older patient" and such, but we can't win everything.