by Gloria Villanueva

Created on: July 10, 2011

On Getting Old.

I start to look old and I am, definitely, getting old. Even though I am only forty-seven, my hair already looks gray. I do not want to color it because I know I will have to do it again and again. Some women my age have already stopped coloring their hair so, why should I start now? Besides, I have not seen many women whose colored hair looks natural. The most of them look pretty artificial. I have decided to accept my hair as it is, unless surviving in the task force demands any changes.

When you are in your twenties you have difficulties to get a job because the most of the employers do not want inexperienced workers and, when you are in your late forties, they do not want you either because they consider you to be old-fashioned in every aspect: you have become “retro”.

The other day I was in the supermarket and I came across a former boss who had always been very fond of me. Now that six years have passed and that I look older, his attitude towards me was a distant one. When he saw me, his first reaction was as cheerful as it was before but, at the moment he noticed I had aged, he took a step backwards, not literally but emotionally. I could feel the distance. The truth is, he has aged, too, but he is a male and I am a female.

Men do not suffer the consequences of getting old in the same way women do. We take the worst part. We become “old” but they become “mature”. Women need to keep up with fashion, style, good shape and health besides remaining as competitive as anybody else, younger or not. The most of men just have to keep, not lose, their power position within the enterprise and that is it. I say “the most” because there are some men, like teachers and clerical workers, who also start getting “due” over the years. It is very sad to see old qualified people asking for a job, claiming to be as capable as anybody else.

My main concern now is to keep my mental functions working right. Since my mother developed the Alzheimer’s disease when she was only fifty-six, my greatest fear is that I, too, lose my mental health at an early age. I am not married, I have no children, and I do not think that my siblings, who are my same age, or my cousins, who are twenty years younger, will take care of me. Actually, I do not mind ending up in a home, what I fear is not being able to take care of my mother, who is still sick.

My other concern is to remain financially independent. I have

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