I’m redoing my author pictures online. I just don’t look like myself anymore, and I want something a little more authentic as to who I am.

For a long time, this was my official author photo:

It’s one of my favorites (and yes, it’s a selfie). This was Christmas Eve my first year in Japan (2016), and I went to Yamaga first, then Tamana, to eat Korean food and sing karaoke with a group of friends. My hair was on point and so was my makeup, and I had recently started using eyebrow templates to reshape my brows when I plucked them. I love this picture.

However…it’ll be ten years old soon. I’ve gained weight. But most noticeably, my hair isn’t black anymore. Not by a long shot. It has changed to a medium brown and keeps getting lighter.

My hair started turning gray in my twenties, then a predominantly white color while I lived in Japan (my thirties) which I hid through regular dyeing. People encouraged me to grow it out because they thought it would look cool, but once I started to let it, it aged me terribly. I kept having to dye it all the time, but it stayed black as it was supposed to for the most part.

When I came back to the States in 2022, this was the first picture taken for a job interview:

I had to do a full frontal shot; there was no other option. You can see here the lightening of my hair and the beginning of some weight gain. My hair is clearly brown, not black. This isn’t a bad picture though, so I’ve cropped it a little and am using it going forward as my author photo until I lose weight and can take some updated pictures.

I took this photo yesterday morning and my face is going “pffft” because I literally just dyed it and the gray strands remained. You can also see that my hair overall is an even lighter brown.

Friends, this is my first official sign that I’m aging. I mean, I know I’m aging all the time, but I’m 42, and this is the first time I feel like I’m obviously 42. And I know people think you’re middle aged in your 50s, but if the American woman’s average lifespan is 81.1 years, so that means, yup, my 40s mean I’m middle aged.

For the longest time I’ve always been told I look younger than my age. This past semester I had a student tell me she thought I was 46. Ouch. In Japan, people thought I was 28 as opposed to 38, my last age in Japan before moving back to the USA (whereupon I turned 39 a couple weeks later). So…I know aging is catching up to me.

For the longest time since coming home, we tried continuing to dye my hair black, but the top of my head would be dark while the ends would stay light. And so I opted to buy hair dye three shades lighter than it had ever been before. Now that my hair is officially dye-resistant (my grays showed up after a fresh dye session), I’m not sure what to do.

Friends with gray hair have encouraged me to go gray, but I don’t feel like I should go gray until I’m at least in my 50s. Maybe mid-50s. I don’t know. When I am allowed to look old?

I think I’m in a bit of denial here. I don’t feel 42 except in my out-of-shape body, and I honestly attribute it to my weight gain more than my age. My mind still feels young, and I maintain “youthful” hobbies, and I act just as goofy as I did when I was younger.

I think that’s why the hair changes are so startling to me. I know that I should stop complaining and could have it worse, but …

Readers, if you are my age, what was the first thing you noticed that made you seem “old?”