I am the Hillbilly Diva.  I have been for years. My blog is subtitled A Hillbilly Diva’s Blatherings.  I have been blathering on the internet since 1989.  In the early days, I was very paranoid about people knowing who I was in real life. My blog was anonymous for years.  I had an email address that was practically untraceable. This continued until after Barack Obama was elected.  I came out on Facebook as my real name.  I had been Connie Oberfuhrer. 

With the election of Obama, I felt hope and peace and love.  I no longer cared who knew who I was, and I no longer needed to be anonymous.  Plus, Facebook was cracking down on fake accounts. 

I’m starting to be paranoid again.  These are ugly times we live in.  Yes, I realize they’ve been ugly always, but now the underbelly is exposed, and the ferocious dog wags its tail.  The ugliness expects to be not just agreed with but praised for his divisiveness.  For its hate. 

I have reached that part of a woman’s life when she becomes invisible.  People, particularly men, don’t much notice me any longer.  In Frankie and Grace, they did a bit about the invisibility of old age.  I had been talking about it for some time. 

In my youth, I was quite attractive.  I didn’t know it, for the most part, though I had pretty decent self-esteem for a woman who came of age in the 70s.  Who had been battered and bruised by the commercials to make us not smell like ourselves, to enhance what was right and hide what was wrong. To get rid of excess weight and acne and gray hair.  To ward off wrinkles.  I lived fast in those early years – on 3 hours of sleep at night – one social engagement after another, one party after another going to work bleary-eyed with stories to tell.  My blood alcohol level probably still too high.

I am at peace with myself now.  For the most part. I would like to lose some of this COVID weight.  Not enough to do anything about it, mind you, but it bothers me some.  Besides, my clothes don’t fit, and I am too poor to afford new.

I do wear makeup, fake nails, and gaudy jewelry. Recently, I’ve taken up eyebrow pencil and lipstick.  Two things I never used.  But as I age, my lips and my eyebrows disappear.

I love my gray, silver, and white hair.  I am especially so at my temples. In the Cherokee tradition, these are known as Wisdom Locks.  Yes.  I have developed some wisdom over the years.  Good thing.  Had I continued my merry destructive way, I wouldn’t have lived this long. 

I may be invisible to the younguns and men, but I am visible to myself.  Perhaps for the first time, I know and understand who I am.  I have grown to accept my foibles while still working to fix the worst of my traits.  Wearing makeup, fake nails, gaudy jewelry, and ridiculous shoes, I shall not go gently into that good night.  I have too much good going on to stop now. 

In my late 30s, I used to say that I was done. I was not suicidal, but I felt like I had done what I had been put here to do.  I felt like it was time for me to move on to the next life.  I think God recycles. 

I still think we have a next life to go to and I’m looking forward to it, but oh I want to be here as long as I can be the self I’ve grown to be.  I have so much to live for.  There is so much I still want to do, go, see. 

We live in turbulent times, but life at its core is still sweet.  And I want it all.