1:47

one thing that has been made resoundingly clear to me since coming back to america is that i, apparently, look very young. across my two jobs i’ve met a lot of new people, and more times than i can even count i’ve had the conversation where someone assumes i’m in high school, or just asks me my age and reacts with SHOCK that i am 25. like… it’s happened at least 20 times by now.

last night one of the guys asked me, "is this your first job?" and i shook my head and said "i’m older than i look"… and when he asked me, and i told him, "25," he said "godDAMN………. really??? i thought you were in high school!"

what is it? i didn’t get this in japan. but then again, asian women have amazing anti-aging qualities, and they are also very thin… i can only assume it’s because i haven’t gained weight like most the rest of my age cohort. it’s definitely not my choice in clothes, because it’s been happening at work, and i wear a uniform at both places.

when i think about it, it makes sense — both my mom and my aunt on my dad’s side still look very young, and have generally aged very well. so i have amazing aging genes from both sides, i guess. still………….. weeeiiiirdddddd. because i was living in japan, where other women were similar, this conversation never came up, so i was unaware it was happening…………………

it IS a relief, because when i look back at pictures from last year, when i was very eating disordered…. i can see, only in retrospect of course, how i must have looked back then — i looked kind of tired and haggard, my skin tone suffered — i was starting to look kind of "aged" in general. it’s nice to see how i’ve bounced back, and that it didn’t have a permanent effect.