Playing catchup with reality

Despite the title of this blog, I have rarely jumped to the heart, but a humbling 24 hours has pushed me.

I look in the mirror and see:  Susan.
Others look at me, and see a senior citizen.
It's not just the last 24 hours.  There was the woman at the gym who didn't understand why I hadn't considered Silver Sneakers exercise classes. The aqua aerobics instructor who asked if I was going to the luncheon at the Senior Center.
Then, yesterday, the eye doctor who said my blurry vision was caused by cataracts.  
Cataracts?! I gasped.  People my age get cataracts???
Yes, he nodded, scanning my chart for my age, 50% of people over 62 have cataracts.*
I'm 58; but to him, I am appropriately aged for cataracts.
Today at the coop, the cashier cautiously wondered if I'd be using the Tuesday discount.
What discount?
For seniors, she explained, over 62.
My perception of myself has clearly not caught up with reality.
Reality gallops apace, while I remain: Susan.

*FWIW: I checked the NIH statistics. Only 15.54% of 62-year-olds have cataracts.  Among white people my age, the rate is 8.84%.

Books and their covers

By now, everyone's seen Susan Boyle, the over-40 singing sensation from Britain's "You've Got Talent" show.
She's the new poster child for "You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover" ; the antithesis of every 40-something woman on reality TV: un-retouched, un-botoxed, uncut by cosmetic surgery, unassuming, unpretentious, yet wonderfully talented.

Who woulda' thunk? Not Simon Cowell or any of the audience members caught rolling their eyes.

As I left a new media group this morning, I realized that to the assembled interactive marketers, I looked like Susan Boyle; over-40, unpretentious, un-retouched, unbotoxed, entirely forgettable. Wonderfully talented, but they'd never know because my packaging is so... un-remarkable; overweight, middle-aged, just plain. They don't even see me. I'm invisible to them.

So they won't hear me sing.