I look my full 43 years now. It's the grey.

huh ... for me it was the opposite - in my early teens I could pass for 20s (true story - at 13 or so I had to get someone to tell the lunch lady I was a student and not a teacher so I could only pay the student price for my lunch), at 16 or so I had waiters asking for my drink order (in a state where the age was 21) and my first year or so at college was taken for a senior. Sometime in my ... late 30s, I guess ... I started looking younger than my age.

I looked about 13/14 until I was around 18 or 19, at which point I looked like I was 16 and continued to look about 16 until I was well into my 20s.

I looked 17 for a good decade. From about 14 to 24.

I looked about 13/14 until I was around 18 or 19, at which point I looked like I was 16 and continued to look about 16 until I was well into my 20s.

I'm pretty sure this is what's going to happen with my almost-17 year old niece.

And the thing is, I'm a June baby, right? So my freshman year of high school, I've *just* turned 14, and in my mixed-grade classes, rather than assuming I'm incoming frosh, basically everyone assumed I was a senior transfer student. By almost 21, I'm getting carded for R-rated movies (!?!!?) and then through my mid-20s, for getting into clubs.

I kind of miss it. I know people still tend to assume I'm younger than I am, but man, the age is rapidly catching up.

What's it like to be a young teen and *look* like a young teen?

I think you still look young for your age, Kat.

But now that you mention grey, man I gotta color my roots soon. Soooo lazy. May even be worth the $80 to pay my stylist just to finally get it done.

I looked 21 ish from about 13 - 31, and 25 from 31 - 39, and now I seem to look 42, at least to young people.

I have got to stop coloring my hair, it's 145 every 6 weeks, that is crazy for me. I have no need for it and do not even do my hair. I feel much better about money spent on my nails.

I think my face still looks young for my age, but my body looks about right. I have developed my mother's body in the last 5 years.

I finally dredged up a fuck to give and colored my long gray roots this morning, right before my doctor's appointment. Not that he'd have cared, it was just an incentive.

I apparently looked 18-21 from age 12 until I was in my late 20s, judging from peoples' reactions and how often I got carded. The last time I got carded for alcohol, I was 31. But age catches up. Now, as long as I keep my hair dyed, my niece tells me I look 35. I know I look older with it all gray, so vanity compels me to keep dyeing it. But lack of fucks will catch up with me, too, and eventually I'll quit.

People have always told me I look young(er than whatever age I was), but I think at least some of that is because I am short.

Now that I think of it, bikeshedding is probably the real basis for many of my decisions. That might not be for the best, but it sure feels right often enough.