EXCERPTS FROM DIANE'S 1ST AND 2ND VIDEO INTERVIEWS

Irene (Glamour Photographer): So let's just start with your name and age, and then give me a short history of you and your life from the beginning up until now.

I’m Diane Cassidy and I am 56.  I'm a physical therapist. I work with older clients, mostly 85 to 100-year old clients.  I have two children, and I've recently started over my life after a divorce from a mean person.  He was abusive, which I didn't know. [Had he] hit me, I would have known how to defend myself.  But it was words and I didn't know [how to defend myself], so that was hard.  So this is a new start… at 50 years old.  It's pretty cool.

Irene (Beauty Photographer): So what made you decide to participate in the 50 over 50 and fabulous project?

It just spoke to me.  We are so critical of ourselves.  You know… your hips are too big; you’re not wearing makeup; you’re not pretty.  Your hair is mousy; you’re not feminine enough.  You should smile… you look better when you smile.  I’m not allowed to have a bad day, and you know, all that stuff that goes along with being a woman, or at least was when I was brought up, and I try not to do that with my daughter.

Jennifer Lopez – now mind you, she’s got serious money, but she made it acceptable to me to have big hips and to have muscles.  Earlier on, it wasn’t ok to have big hips.  I was supposed to be smaller; I was supposed to be dainty.  It’s your body.  It’s your gift you are who you are.  Embrace it.

I feel fabulous. I'm not perfect. I don't want to be perfect. I wanted to be able to share that comfort that I have gotten to at this age, and I'm still young. And I want to let other people know there's no stigma with turning 50. That's important to me. And this [project] caught my attention. I struggled to get where I am. I want to be able to share some of this with other people, and maybe they won't have to struggle as hard as I did to get here.

And I get told a lot from my older clients that I'm beautiful - and this is before we had masks. I swear it's either they see it in your eyes, or it's the smile… and I tell myself it's the smile. But I want to see if some of that inner beauty comes across [in the photographs from the project]. I want to see what everybody else sees.  So I'm very curious.  I'm nervous because I am not comfortable on this side of the camera.  I'm excited though.

Irene (Glamour Photographer): [Interview question after the photography session] What is your favorite bucket list type thing that you've done?

The boudoir [photography part of my 50 Over 50 & Fabulous] photo shoot.  Now, you have to understand, I do not like being on this side of the camera. I'm usually the one taking the pictures. So this was very difficult for me, but that was on my bucket list, and that was really fun.  So I’m getting a little braver.

Irene (Beauty Photographer): So how did you mark turning 50? How did it feel?

We had a big party. We had fun. Like I said, my clients are 85 to 100 years old. 50 is not old. I don't even call someone old until they're over 85.  70 is not old. So 50 wasn't that big of a deal other than to mark a special occasion.  And my entire family came up from Virginia, up to Connecticut where we lived, and they stayed with us the whole weekend. The last time they came up was 10 years ago, so it was really cool.  I got to tell everybody how important they were to me, and it was priceless because my best friend was dead six months later. 

So 50… 50 was a big deal for me; a lot of stuff happened. And you know, my friend's death was kind of what sparked reassessing my life.  I thought I was in a good - well, not necessarily a good place – but I thought it was under control, you know, for better for worse, and all that stuff.  So the marriage isn't great, but you know, I thought everything else was kind of okay.   And then she [my best friend] died. And she was healthy.  She was strong.  She got sick very quickly, and it was bad. And even if she had lived it, it would have been awful. But it's probably the best thing that ever happened to me because it forced me to look at my life and not take it for granted.  And I was settling for good enough. I'll never settle again.  I have this quote: Don't let anyone take the sparkle out of your life.  So I drew my boundaries, and my former spouse - he was on the other side.

Irene (Glamour Photographer): Well, obviously your decision to leave was one of the most important if not the most important turning point in your life. What have been some other significant points of change in your life so far? And how did these other things change you?

Another big one was having my children. That was really cool, and they helped me enjoy the little things in life.  It was hard because later on, my former spouse kind of took over the mothering role.  And he had a law degree.  For whatever reason, he decided that nobody would hire him, so I ended up working seven days a week and doing three jobs, so I didn't have time to hang out with the children because it was my job to get the income.

Irene (Beauty Photographer): Was caring for your dad when he was ill what made you become a physical therapist?

No, that didn't make me go into PT.  No, that was hell. It almost made me quit. He had the big stroke that left him totally dependent, you know, a feeding tube and he couldn't talk. He could understand what we were saying - so very expressive, we never doubted what he was thinking. That was just a few months before I was due to graduate from PT school. Physical therapy - you're supposed to fix people, or at least that's what I was thinking.  I couldn't fix my dad.  It was like, what the hell am I doing? This is a stupid job.  And I had to try to reassess the whole thing.  It was awful. We were prisoners at home.  We had a caregiver Monday through Friday, but couldn't really go out.  One person would go grocery shopping; the other person would have to stay home.  It was really hard.  We all kind of cycled through. I was there for the first two years. One of my other sisters was there for part of the time...

Irene (Glamour Photographer): Well, it sounds like you've really been through a lot and overcome a lot.  You've been strong.  And then the most strength… for when you decided to walk away [from your husband]. 

I am so proud of that.  He didn't think I would go. He had me so trapped financially, emotionally, because he knew the kids wouldn't go with me. I thought they would come with me. And they didn't. They chose not to and they were old enough according to the judge to make their own decisions. My daughter, she's mad at me. She says I abandoned her.  My son hasn't talked to me since I left. He thinks I'm evil.

I knew life was not good. When my daughter and I came down for my sister's birthday party, and we were at the lake.  My husband had very fair skin and did not like being out in the sun. So I'm at the lake. And we're jet skiing and water skiing, and I am a water rat; I love the water. I grew up in the water. And I was laughing and having fun. And my daughter turned to me and she's like, “Wow, mom, you're laughing. I never see you laugh.”  And it just so stunned me, and I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed… a real laugh. And then I knew.  I knew.  And I tried to divorce 10 years before I actually did it. The kids were little, and I had filed, and he talked me out of it. He said “I'll change.”  And he didn't change. And I kept thinking, I married. It was important. I committed to it. And he accused me of not being committed and having no intention of following through, and all these horrible things, but he said he was going to change, so I stuck with it for better for worse and all that junk. But there was no change. And when I knew that I hadn't been laughing, I was like, What the hell am I still here for?  I could be dead like my friend. And knowing that I had been talked out of it before really scared me that I wouldn't have the ability to follow through this time. And I knew I physically would not survive because with my friend dying and all this stuff, I had no one to talk to. I was so alone.

So I jumped ship and had what my family considers an affair. I call it a lifeline.  And the rationale was that knowing what my husband believes, I have crossed the line, and I know that if he says, “I’ll forgive you,” I’ll know he’s lying, because I crossed his boundaries.  That’s the intensity with what I had to do to make sure that I would not get sucked back in.  Try explaining that to my children.  I thought maybe after 4 years, my daughter would understand.  She still doesn’t.  I’m hoping at some point, she’ll be able to see it for what it was… that it was for my protection.  And my friend knew what I was doing.  And he knew what he was doing too.  And I’ll be forever indebted to him for that.  He saved my life.  So here I am.  I’m alive!  Every day, I get up on this side of the daisies, and I’m thankful.  I have two families!  Like my daughter.  Hopefully someday my son, but then my family down here.  But I had to walk away from my home. 

I got packed up out of living in a home for 25 years.  He kicked me out of the house.  I paid all the bills; he kicked me out of the house.  I didn’t kick him out because I didn’t want my children to think that it was mom’s fault he was living in a box under the bridge.  So I let him kick me out.  I had stuff thrown in boxes and into a moving truck with no warning in two days.

Those Dove ads are one of the best commercials.  They had a bunch of women come in.  I think they met with a sketch artist, and they had to give a description of themselves, and [the sketch artist] would draw it, and then their loved one would describe the same person, and the depictions were night and day.  All the flaws that the person felt about themselves were very evident in the [first] image that was produced, but the image that was produced based on how the loved one saw the same person… it was such a powerful image.

Irene (Beauty Photographer): Well, now that you're 56, how do you think that your generation is perceived by other generations?

I think they write us off. It's awful. I feel like we're just hitting our stride. I used to sort of understand from my mom that she would worry that the grandchildren didn't think that she was of any value. And this was a while ago. And now I'm kind of on that end of it. But then I'm validated again, at least with my coworkers, because I have a lot of experience, and I'm able and willing to share that. But for marketing and stuff [advertising], we should have the most discretionary income, and they’re missing us.  The marketers don't pay attention to us. And the ads… don't even get me started on advertising.

Irene (Glamour Photographer): You’re still working.  What do you want employers to know about women who are 50+?

Oh, we're worth our salaries.  More probably.  Health care (the industry) is notorious, as males generally get more money than females at the same position, and that's really hard to swallow. We're worth it.

Irene (Beauty Photographer): Well, are there any myths that you would like to bust about the over 50s?

Oh, there's so many of them.  We still think of ourselves as sexy. We don't have to look like JLo or Jennifer Aniston or all those 50 [year old] people that have trainers and nutritionists.  We can be healthy without that, so there's a nice in between in there.

Irene (Glamour Photographer): I know you had fun being photographed…

Yes, yes, it was very fun.  I really enjoyed it.  [My sisters] had fun too.  The last picture we had of the siblings… it was this awful picture from back in the early 70s.  So this is nice.  We have to wait until May to give it to our mother.

Irene (Beauty Photographer): What do the images make you feel when you look at them?

I hear from people all the time – before masks – my clients who are older than 85.  And some of them are flirting or are more like a grandfather or a dad – “You’re so beautiful” – and I laugh and brush it off and say it’s because I’m smiling.  But when I look at the [50 Over 50 & Fabulous] pictures, I feel beautiful…  I’m a little bit more comfortable in my own skin, being on the outside looking in.

Irene (Glamour Photographer): So what type of people would you recommend this experience to?

Pretty much everybody in our age group.  Usually, there’s rites of passage where you’re photographed, and they’re usually when we’re much younger, or when you’re the mother of the bride, and you’re not the center of attention.  This was really good because we’re the center of attention and we’re worthy.  It doesn’t get any simpler than that.  I was thinking of all the other times that I had a photo taken, and it was all life things.  It doesn’t have to be a special life thing.  It can be just because you’re worthy.  …How you [the photographer] caught the expressions where I was still comfortable and natural, and I was glammed up, but it was still me, and that’s the difference.

Irene (Beauty Photographer):Awww… you’ve made my day.  Thank you, so much Diane.  The next time we’ll be seeing one of your portraits displayed large at the exhibit.

I have so many friends who are interested in coming out to see the exhibit.