Editor’s Note: Margot Wolf has been a copywriter/creative director at advertising agencies including DMB&B (now defunct, as she seems to be) as well as the corporate headquarters of Revlon, Estée Lauder and Aramis. She has plied her trade on beer, candy, frozen dinners, AT&T and every kind of beauty product. As president of Margot, Inc., her freelance nom de guerre, clients included the international divisions of Estée Lauder, Revlon and Maybelline. Her two children and grandson live far away from Manhattan, where she hangs out with her husband.

Recently, I went to a Park Avenue cocktail party with my stock-analyst husband, an annual business social where most of the guests are men who have just come from the office in their masters-of-the-universe ensembles. Wall Street was in meltdown mode but the guys still had that sheen of expensive worsted. My role was strictly aging arm candy — the legs are still good — requiring only friendly greetings and rapt attention to conversations about Street gossip, the economy and job/no-job status.

So I was shocked when a very tall, well-tailored young man asked me, in a very delicate way, if I "did" anything. He was British, so naturally he had the charm not to imply that perhaps I was too old to be useful, or a lady of leisure for whom work would be an insult, or just too dumb. I’d been confronting this issue inconclusively for a year and all I could chirp was, "I don’t know. I’m either unemployed, out of business or retired." He smiled politely and went to get another drink.

This is normal social small talk for finding out who other people are. Most of us never even think about it until we reach … a certain age. Well, that birthday and I have been there, done that, and now anyone who asks what I do sounds like Torquemada to me. I am (was? am?) a freelance copywriter/creative director who hasn’t earned a cent for over a year. Unemployed? Yes. Out of business? My company has no projects. Retired? I collect Social Security. 

I used to be somebody. I worked in corporate jobs for ad agencies, for Revlon, for Estée Lauder. It was clear what I did and where I belonged in the social universe. Then I gave in to the desire to be like the freelancers I hired who wore jeans to our meetings, then were free to go outside to walk around or whatever. During the day! I became an entrepreneur. I was still somebody, albeit a lonely, 24/7 slave to my clients.

Then my work dried up, at the same time I hit what would conventionally be retirement age. I searched the Internet for new assignments, but the few that seemed to fit my skills never responded to my résumé. I suspect that what I think is my valuable experience and impressive titles translates as "old and too expensive," an all-too-common and discouraging scenario.

Now I need a new way to explain what I do, and therefore I am. Is my lack of work just the "downturn"? How long does it have to last before I’m involuntarily out of the workforce for good? And this isn’t just my quandary; I read about the growing gang of women, some reaching into their 90s, in the same boat, thanks to our ever-increasing, energetic longevity. For many, the economy has compounded an identity crisis with more basic trauma: no work = no food, shelter or meds. I appreciate my material good fortune, but losing one’s sense of self can produce collateral damage, too.