These lines from in Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, rang so true and familiar to me. Coincidentally, I was reading the book on Kindle on the plane and my layover, surrounded by people everywhere:
With the years, time has become my ally, as it does for every woman—I’ve become invisible, see-through. I am able to move around like a ghost, look over people’s shoulders, listen in on their arguments and watch them sleep with their heads on their backpacks or talking to themselves, unaware of my presence, moving just their lips, forming words that I will soon pronounce for them.
I don't know if this is every woman's experience, but I seem to have gone through a few distinct phases - very young and the male gaze had not fallen on me yet. Then suddenly it did - it was everywhere all the time with no chance of escape. Suddenly I had become visible and had some sort of power than I did not know or have control of. Then came the more steady state experience where I was visible but not the sharp focus. This was a good phase in balance - being able to retain power combined with steadiness. Then the fade out phase set in, where I can blend in perfectly, have a bubble of isolation in a crowd. It took some getting used to but I have grown to love and rejoice in it.
I do believe many women go through very similar life stages - it is how nature intended perhaps. And yet, when we are at the peak of receiving attention, we want to believe it is on account of something unique or special about us - as if nature graced us with some gifts that others were not so lucky to receive. When it fades out, we attribute it to being very ordinary and unremarkable - we wonder if that had always been the case. Neither is true. We are and remain a person unlike any other. The seasons come and go in our lives, bringing in the wake certain ebb and tide in the level of interest we are able to generate in men. Those "highs" and "lows" are part of what the seasons bring to everyone not any one particular woman.
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