42 Years Old: The Age of Visibility

About coming of age, again and again — and navigating bullies and envy while becoming visible.

I am not invisible anymore. 

I’ve spent my 20s and 30s largely in hiding. Cruising by myself from one continent to the other, from one metropolis to the other, I felt on top of the world, just like I had once stood on top of the Empire State Building in New York City. It was all very exciting. New adventures. New sights. New jobs, new flats. New loves. It was comforting to be an anonymous face in a foreign crowd. 

When I turned 40 I felt prepared to become more visible. 

I moved to a smaller community in search of people, craving to bump into neighbors in the church square, to be recognized on the street. I wanted to belong. Growing in my job also boosted my visibility at the office. Something shifted in me when I told my manager in an annual review, looking straight into his blue eyes: I’m actually doing a great job, especially as a leader to my team, and I deserve a raise. I was ready to stop hiding and call it humility, I was ready to take up more space. 

My confidence and the newly discovered pleasure of being visible were two puzzle pieces that clicked into place. I had been on a long journey to recuperate my self-confidence post-divorce, after a decade spent in the wrong company. 

But together with my readiness to live more visibly, something else arrived: people’s envy. Surprising, overwhelming envy. 

In the past year, I’ve been bullied by a man and bad-mouthed by a couple of women.

All in the professional sphere. Every time the blow of envy fell, a voice inside me whispered: you see?! That’s why being invisible was easier. You didn’t bother anyone and nobody was threatened by your mere existence. 

When the man bullied me during a conference, I sat up straight, power-posing in the chair, arms splayed over the armrests, looking him straight in the eye, and answering calmly to his wrath. The calmer I was, the angrier he got that he couldn’t dominate me. Of course, anxiety made my blood boil underneath my clothes and my skin. 

A few women also compared themselves to me and hated on me, spreading lies and discrediting me. A trap they set for me, but fell into themselves. We’ve been socially conditioned to hate confident women, and if not hate, at least to feel a slight irritation, to give it a second, distrustful thought. 

With a very recent history of people-pleasing, I had a brief tendency to retreat into my shell when these events happened. To move away, to go somewhere I’d be anonymous and invisible again. To climb on top of the Empire State again and breathe easier again.

When women envied me I tried to reframe it: it must mean I am enviable.

But that’s not as pleasant and ego-boosting as you might think. When women envy me, it throws me right back to my teenage years when mother also envied my girlfriends, bad-mouthing them, when she insisted my academic success was ‘our’ achievement. 

When you’re bullied, you can’t rationalize that it’s not about you. The reptilian brain takes over. When another woman insults me just because I’m more successful than she is — success that I built from the ground up with my two hands and my one brain — it’s hard to keep perspective. The young, 5-year-old Monica emerges from deep inside with memories of being mocked for who she was, for being too quiet or reading too much, for not smiling enough for the pleasure of the adults in the audience.

When bullies bully it’s not easy to stay rational. You can be rational only in hindsight. 

When I became more myself and dared to be more visible, I wasn’t prepared for men to yell at me. I wasn’t prepared for female misogyny either — the worst kind if you ask me, a bigger crime than male misogyny.

As I became more comfortable in my skin, more people called me an extrovert to my surprise. I’m an introvert without a doubt, but an introvert who now shares her thoughts and voices her opinions. Today I’m a 42-year-old woman, divorced and childless, confident with my choices and my professional expertise, happy with the life I built. And this ruffles some people’s feathers. Because I’m not who society taught us I should be as a woman at 42 years old.

When I dared to break the prescribed mold, men got angry and women got jealous. 

But I take this response from others as an invitation to inspire them — especially women — to become visible themselves. Instead of firing back or letting disappointment crush me, I will offer what I have to give: kindness and empathy. I know it’s hard to break the mold, I know it’s a tough road to travel. I’ve been traveling it. I won’t hide or become small again, nor will I contribute to swelling the ranks of female misogynists.

When you are bullied for who you are the only thing you can do is be more yourself.  

I am here to stay. At 42, I am taking my place in the world, after being invisible for too long. Some may protest, others might get mad. But still, I’ll rise, as Maya Angelou would say (click to read the poem if you don’t know it).