10/07/2025
— Do you know what the hardest thing about growing old is?
— What?
— You become invisible.
As long as you’re young, you’re someone: beautiful, charming, charismatic, strong… or at least noticed.
But then all of that fades.
And you become “the old man” in the worn-out jacket, or “the lady” in the faded coat and hat.
It’s as if you’re not really there anymore. You turn transparent.
— But you know? I noticed you the moment you walked into the room…
That line is from a well-known British series.
And yes, it’s painfully real.
Very often, the only “trait” that seems to matter in an elderly person is their age.
No one says: “She used to be a literature teacher,” or “He was a civil engineer.”
They just say: “She’s over 80,” or “He must be at least 90.”
As the years go by, the number of people who know the real story of an older person shrinks.
Who they were, what they loved, what they were good at…
slowly disappears with time.
Friends? They’re gone, or shut inside their homes, barely able to move, maybe venturing only as far as the bakery on the corner.
Children? They’ve long since built lives of their own, with their own problems.
They might call sometimes, and — very rarely — stop by for a coffee or tea.
In the apartment building, new neighbors move in: young parents with strollers, dads carrying grocery bags…
and no one even knows the name of the lady on the second floor.
At the little shop around the corner, the clerks have changed.
No familiar faces.
Of the elderly in the neighborhood, if anyone knows anything, it’s only their apartment number and a rough guess of their age.
But what goes on behind that door… no one cares.
An invisible world.
We don’t realize how, little by little, a void forms around our elders.
We don’t understand why Mom calls ten times a day “about silly things.”
Or why Dad keeps asking for details that seem unnecessary.
They’re afraid of being completely forgotten.
They want to be heard, to be acknowledged… even if only by a voice.
Old age isn’t just about years.
It’s invisibility.
It’s loneliness.
It’s an enormous need to feel important to someone, still.
