Once Upon a Time: True Stories of an Aspiring Writer

19: The Appearance Approximation

MY SECOND-YOUNGEST SISTER was an adventurer, and soon she'd be embarking on a trip to Colorado with some schoolmates to explore the nature out there. It didn't appeal to me at all. However, the idea of traveling, even inside the United States, made our parents think about getting us passports. Weeks later, we went to the courthouse to get one for me. The whole thing seemed silly, as the farthest I've traveled was Florida. Still, by logic, it was good to have.

We walked up to the front desk after navigating complicated hallways and requested one.

"How old are you?" asked the stout older woman behind the desk with the fake-sweet personality of Professor Umbridge.

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen? I'd say about...ten."

She smiled that not-so-sweet Umbridge smile.

Eventually, we realized that we needed a photo taken elsewhere first and that we could not acquire one right then and there. But if I were on my own, I perhaps would have suggested that today was not a good day and walked out. Because I was sick and tired of these comments.

***

This conversation is one I know all too well. Wherever I go, people believe it is appropriate to comment on the way I look. A shocking number of these are adults.

When we were younger, people used to mistake Kelly and I for twins. I thought this was weird. We both had blonde hair and blue eyes. I was on the shorter end and she was taller. I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have, before I wanted a twin. Years later, on the way home from Kelsey's birthday party, I discovered a Mary Kate and Ashley book in the car. Assuming it was for me, I devoured half of it on the 40-minute ride home. Twins sounded awesome! 

But in real life, being assumed you were your little sister's twin wasn't cool. Here are some of the comments I've endured:

Summer camp, by a fellow camper named Tia at fifteen. "Oh, I thought you were nine."

At an orthodontist I ended up not going to. "Really? You look young!"

A parent in the audience of an event for my younger sister when I was sixteen. "When do you start middle school?"

A coworker: "Holy ****, you look young!" Language and all.

At a job interview (I'm not kidding). "Oh, you've worked in an office before? I wasn't sure because you look young. Did you just graduate from high school?"

I truly don't understand the logic. Maybe people believe that hearing that they look youthful is a compliment because when they get older, they won't show age. (I guess that's something older people are supposed to be ashamed of? Showing signs of a long, active life? Humans are weird.) All it is is condescending. Why on earth would someone want to know that someone thought they were a nine-year-old at fifteen? Why would someone think that's a compliment in any way? (Okay, that comment came from a fellow camper at social skills camp. But still.)

It's not always easy to tell. I can see how a person would look twelve, but I could also look at them from a different angle and see how they might be thirty. Many of the boys in my CT boarding school could have passed for 30 or 40 by facial hair alone. We all have a unique face and body type. Naturally, we all grow at different rates and in different ways. The same goes for me. I clearly look younger in photos from sixth grade, but I guess I also do compared to people my own age, for some reason?

But something strange seemed to happen after about ninth grade: I stopped aging and growing. When I was about to graduate from high school, they showed pictures of us as arriving freshman compared to recent photos during an assembly. I didn't age a drop. I still look pretty much exactly the same to this day. It doesn't help that my body stopped filling out and I appear to be stuck in puberty. My voice has also failed to age much since then.