I'm what you might call a late-in-life attractive person. I discovered this recently, though I'd harbored suspicions throughout my late thirties—those nagging doubts that require confirmation from someone not legally obligated to love you.

The transformation typically happens through one of three catalysts: you lose weight, you get in shape, or someone looks at you and goes, "Damn." For me, it was a combination of the first two, beginning five years ago when I started working out with something approaching consistency, grew my hair out, and developed what my therapist would generously call "increased self-confidence." People began to notice. My pants no longer fit around my waist—a development that, for once, felt like victory rather than defeat. Friends mentioned my "slimmer figure" with careful enthusiasm usually reserved for discussing someone's sobriety. Most tellingly, strangers began talking to me in public, and it didn't immediately annoy me.

But the true test of attractiveness isn't personal revelation. It's when the gatekeepers noticed and decide to let me in.

Recently, I turned 41 and treated myself to a facial and Botox, because apparently this is what passes for self-care in middle age. I left the clinic refreshed in that particular way that comes from having tiny needles strategically placed in your forehead, when someone yelled from a passing truck: "Girl, you better WATCH that ass!" I looked around for the intended recipient of this poetry, but the parking lot contained only me and a bewildered-looking Honda. Unless the man liked the curve of that Civic's quarter panels, he was yelling at me.

Later that day, at my Pilates class—where I go to perfect my form and pretend my hip flexors don't hate me—I mentioned my birthday to my instructor. She hugged me and bought me a pair of grippy socks as a present. Standing there in my new socks, having been publicly objectified and then privately celebrated within the span of just a few hours, I wondered: So, this is what it feels like to be attractive? 

Because it really is when someone else tells you you're attractive that you become one of the Attractive Ones. It hits different when someone beautiful lays their metaphorical sword on your shoulder and says, "You're one of us." You've worked hard for something that required no particular accomplishment—a participation trophy for simply showing up to your own life with better posture.

This became clear when I mentioned to my Pilates instructor my aspirations to teach. She responded with enthusiasm usually reserved for discovering a twenty-dollar bill in an old coat pocket, explaining that they were always short on instructors and that I had "the look." The look, apparently, being more important than my ability to nail a teaser without breaking concentration.

The strange thing is, I don't think I was ever particularly unattractive; I just didn't like myself very much. No one ever called me unattractive as an adult, but no one stopped traffic to call me attractive, either. I received acknowledgment as "pretty" and "cute," which are the participation trophies of compliments—nice enough, but hardly the stuff of romantic comedies. It's funny how these designations can shift seemingly overnight, and how they can change at an age when you thought all your aesthetic dice had already been cast.

I'm slightly resentful that this didn't happen when I was ten to fifteen years younger and could have enjoyed more time in what apparently qualifies as a "hotter, sexier body." There's something vaguely insulting about the universe's timing—a promotion offered just as you're planning to retire.

Because attractiveness doesn't last, I don't know how long I have. Because attractiveness is subjective, I don't know if this is an elaborate delusion supported by a particularly flattering athleisure and good lighting. Because attractiveness has its downsides—as any woman who's been yelled at in a parking lot can attest—I don't know what I've had to sacrifice, or will have to sacrifice, for this dubious privilege.

But I'll enjoy it while it lasts, grippy socks and all. After forty-one years of flying under the radar, I suppose there's something to be said for finally being seen—even if it took this long to become worth looking at.