I knew it was just a matter of time...

More on my trip with Mal soon, because there were some doozies I want to remember, but I have to denote this most special of occasions.

Ever since the last time I got pregnant at what the medical community at large  (but never, ever my awesome team of midwives at Birthwise) would call "an advanced maternal age," I've known it was coming.

And it finally happened last night:

"Is that your grandbaby?"

I expected it to be more cutting than it was. Frankly, it was anti-climactic.

Part of this might be because the lady who asked me this both called Mal a girl repeatedly, after he corrected her, and then requested a ride to a bar down the street. From McDonald's. At 8:45 on a Sunday. Bless her.

But I think that most of it was because of the work I've been doing on accepting and loving my body (and all bodies). While what I've wrestled with most has been internalized fatphobia, I feel like really examining and deconstructing biases I've been taught my whole life has helped with everything, this included.

To be "offended" by being mistaken for my child's grandparent, I think I'd have to have more stock in pride of visibly defying my age, or shame in maturing. I have neither.

Actually, a few hours before that, I'd been telling James about an article I read on the thin privilege of "small fats," or what Roxane Gay calls, "Lane Bryant fat." I told him that in addition to the "privilege" I experience of not having to worry whether I'll fit into a restaurant seat, or have to buy two airline tickets, or be told by a doctor when I go in with pain in my breast and I should lose weight and I'll feel better, I also seem to have reached a milestone that many women meet with mourning, but I find exhilarating:

Largely because of my age, I'm "invisible."

When I was young, I was on the receiving end of much overt disgust (*shudder* "You're so fat!") and impertinent assumptions (the first time I was asked if I was pregnant, I was 16) very often. There's a trauma that comes with stigma in which someone isn't victimized only by overt actions; they are hurt over and over just by the anxiety they live with in anticipating the next unwanted negative interaction.

What I'm describing as my personal experience pales in comparison to the things that other minorities and "super fats" endure every day, but it was still a big part of my younger life.

It isn't anymore.

And the reason I believe it is not is that I have reached an age where it isn't seen as my civic duty to be attractive to the male eye anymore. And so I'm "invisible," but, to me, in the best possible way. I am not on the receiving end of objective scrutiny and catcalls. I know men are being kind when they hold a door open, because they don't have ulterior motives. Some women hate that; I think it's an incredibly comfortable place to have landed.

So, being mistaken for a grandma when I'm not wasn't a blow. I wasn't taken for being any "older" than I am; my sister, who is younger than I am, is a grandmother.

Actually, there's an important lesson there: You cannot tell how two people are related by looking at them. I should never make assumptions.

There we have it: The first, and likely not the last, time I was presumed to be the grandma. Very often, when I go to bed at night, I certainly feel as tired as a grandma after a grandkid has visited all day! So it's kind of accurate.

Ol' Granny and Mal, Jr.