You are Not Invisible

Dear Reader,

In case you need to know – you are not invisible.

You are not irrelevant. You are not diminished. You are definitely not

washed up on the shoreline of past successes.

You are, in fact, a force of nature.

You are a fluid, changing, emerging source of influence in your circle of

family and friends.

You being here, matters.

Retired? It doesn’t mean you have relinquished your flair for problem-

solving. You haven’t surrendered your Mentoring Card; it’s still there, in

your wallet next to your Champion-of-Humor Card.

Get these out, let them see the light of day. Re-engage.

Start a conversation.

Get out two coffee mugs and invite someone over for a sip and a chinwag.

Go for a walk.

Listen to the morning birds, those ambient nature sounds that were once

drowned out by copy machines, faxes and relentless phone calls.

If you happen across a news flash about “invisibility among older

Americans,” don’t believe it.

Sure, we live in a youth-fixated culture. Even so, there are young adults just

aching for connection. All they need is for you to lean in a little, to posture

yourself as available and interested. Don’t withhold your light.

Don’t be a miser with your wealth of wisdom, your stories. Your laughter.

It’s a conundrum, really: many of us in the “Sixty-Plus-Brigade” participate

in our own “invisibility” by withdrawing into isolation. Please, resist the urge

to withdraw.

Risk eye contact. Even the small encounters can carry the day.

The poet, Danusha Laméris says it this way:

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by.

Or how strangers still say “bless you”

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick them up.

Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile

at them and for them to smile back.

For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam

chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,

have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

(from the poem, “Small Kindnesses”)

You are not invisible. You are remarkable and kind and evident in the way

you tilt your head; the lilt in your voice when you speak to the dog; the way

your smile is sweetly crooked at the thought of a memory wrapped inside of

grief.

Oh, please – you are not invisible. You are remarkable. Splendid. Likeable,

even.

Step into the world with your unique blend of sass and reserve, caution and

curiosity.

Carry yourself as if you are seen. Because, Dear Reader, you are.