The incidents of that Sunday were on my mind a couple of days later, and I decided to give a complaint at my local police station. Once he heard my story, the police officer with whom I spoke explained in detail why there was no report he could take down. Several days had already passed and so the events could not be investigated. The streets were crowded according to what I had told him, and it could be easily seen as one person just bumping into another. And his third point was that there had been no assault that happened. His recommendation was that should I run into a similar situation in the future I needed to call 911 immediately and report the issue then. A police car would be sent at once to assist and to investigate the matter.
While I was not physically hurt in either of the incidents, I felt quite shaken and targeted by the two women. It was ageism at play, I thought. I was 70 in the Spring of 2022. I turned 71 this past July. I appear to be 20 to 30 years younger. I have a youthful face and still have the curves of my younger years. But I wear my hair its natural gray color so upon seeing me people know I am an older woman. I wear my hair shoulder length. However, I dress to flatter my youthful appearance. But this gets me into trouble on the streets. I am looked at with disapproval by some young women and even some older ones, almost as if I have no right to look and dress youthful at my age. Some other women, young and old, might look at me more out of curiosity, I think. In no way, am I saying that I am better than anyone else or have anything better in life. Because I do not. When you really think about it, this is all fluff, especially when you consider that I am still a senior citizen with all the travails that come with that “status” in life. I philosophize about all the “difficulty” (and that word is an understatement) that I have gone through in life. I think God has seen it fit to “reward” me for that suffering. At times, however, it has embarrassed me a little when people have thought I was younger but I was older. Like I needed to feel badly about being older but looking younger. But I would never divulge my age at the time. Instead of women getting angry at an older woman for her youthful look, why not feel inspired and think it might be a possibility for them as well, whether they are young or old.
Further, an outward appearance does not tell the whole story about anyone. I hate to bring up an example of a criminal in a story I am telling about my myself. Still, there is a certain comparison to be made here. When a defendant is brought to trial in a courtroom charged with a heinous crime, he may eventually get convicted of that crime. More often than not, at his court appearances, we see a well-dressed man looking spiffy in his suit and tie. Can we say that he does so to influence the judge and jury with his appearance and give off an aura of a good and reputable person? Obviously, the suit and tie did not tell the whole story. Again, it was fluff. We always need to realize that the outer trappings of a person do not tell the whole story, no matter who the person is or what the circumstances may be.
I loved my mother, and if you have been keeping up with my story, you already have some insight into what my family life was like. My mother, and there are so many others like her, because this world is a cookie cutter world of different people falling into categories. That is why human behavior is so predictable to social scientists. Surveys are taken of people in order to predict human behavior. I could not get from my mother the emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual things I was so in need of as a small child. She did not have many of those things herself. She lost her own mother at 2 ½ years old and lost out on the mothering she needed as well. As a wife and mother in 1956, she left her small hometown in Puerto Rico, a world familiar to her, to come to the large metropolis of New York City which was alien to her never having had schooling back on the island. More than likely she still would have had her limitations back in Puerto Rico, but she had a whole network of family and friends there to support her.
Instead, my mother made up for those things she could not give me by dressing me up and making that the most important part of the mothering she gave me. As aa young woman in my 20s, I considered my childhood. I felt like a doll my mother would dress up. She was obsessed with having me make a good impression with the clothes I wore to the detriment and expense of so many other more important things I needed. These were the things that would have prepared me for life. Making a good impression with my appearance was the singular most important lesson I got from her so I’ve always dressed well. Don’t envy me. Sometimes, I do feel like it’s all fluff. It’s taken me years of psychotherapy to try and change, and I am still not where I want to be. I’ve never been successful at having a social life. The only “social” in my life is social anxiety.
Now, I could be wrong at the way in which I have perceived the events of that Sunday, but I think I’m reading things correctly since I know from my past experience how I’m treated because of my appearance. We are envious of what someone else has and can become angry with them when oftentimes we don’t even know what’s going on with that person. What’s beneath the surface can belie reality. We can feel certain ways because we think we’ve been done out of something that someone else has gotten. But do we even consider their reality? “The grass is always greener…”
