The way a woman is appreciated throughout her life changes from one stage to another.

As babies, we are appreciated for our gurgles, and our life force. We are admired simply because we are delicious miracles. We scamper around charming everyone and everything, learning what works.

We eventually enter the school systems, where we are admired for being pretty, or intelligent, or funny, or athletic, or artistic. We try to do well in school, enjoy our sports and our activities, and endeavor to make our families proud by going to college or getting a good job.

Then we enter our “hottest” phase- that time of life in our 20’s and 30’s where men, young and old, just desire us. They ache for us. Our beauty and bodies and brazenness tend to knock men off their feet.

And don’t even try saying, “I never went through a hot phase.”

Yes, you did. You might have been too busy comparing yourself to others to really see it. Trust me, men thought you were hot. I’m sorry you missed it. Make up for it by enjoying your hotness now. Yes, you’re still hot, so don’t go missing another opportunity to appreciate your hotness, knucklehead. Enjoy this one.

After many years of looking, we choose the best boy we can find, get married and procreate. We proudly push our babies around in strollers, and it occurs to us that while people still smile when they approach us, they’re not looking at us anymore- they’re looking at our babies. They’re not besotted by us, but by our babies.

And we know this is good. This is right.

I once met an older woman at the playground as she watched her grandchildren play, and she complimented me on how cute my sons were. I thanked her but lamented that I myself looked terrible. With twins and a toddler, I told her it was all I could do to get out the door, much less try to look glamorous.

“Honey,” she said, “don’t worry about it. Once you have babies, no one looks at you anymore, anyway.”

Sort of true.

Then our children grow independent, and we reach that exciting stage of reinvention. Maybe we want to start a new career, or travel, or start chipping away at that bucket list. We dance like no one is watching, we take classes, we even start spending winters away from home. It is an exciting time.

For widows, this stage is all the more poignant, because you are single, and men start looking at you again. But not because you’re attractive. I mean, I like to think I don’t look like the Elephant Man, but on any given day, if a man looks at me twice, two thoughts pop into my head:

Does he desire me? Or my real estate?

Men, especially men who deal with money, are 100% positive that widows can’t handle their finances. Real estate agents especially will do anything to cozy up to a widow with desirable real estate. Anything. They hope to eventually get close enough to whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

“Oooh, baby, gimme that square footage….”

This past summer I was enjoying patio cocktails with a visiting friend, and as we chatted, my friend suddenly cut me off.

“That guy is staring at you really intently.”

I looked over to see a man walking his dogs, a man who has always coveted my property. No many how many kind ways I have tried to tell this man to buzz off, he looks at me as if I am an unwelcome birdbath squatting on the lot of his future home.

I shrugged it off. “He’s not staring at me. He’s staring at the lot.”

She stared back at him.

“Why is he standing in the middle of your yard? Doesn’t he even care that you’re sitting right here?”

“Nope.”

Widows are simply not to be taken seriously, and that’s fine. After almost five years I’ve not only grown accustomed to it, I’m fairly amused by it. Because when it comes to being treated like a big, dumb, stupid idiot, I always like to defer to my favorite saying:

I can tell how dumb someone is by how stupid he thinks I am.

Underestimate a widow with brains, intention, purpose and fire at your own peril. More tomorrow on the power of widowhood.