“Is this your mom?” a genial man shouted from across the room to my 40-something friend Eliza who was sitting next to a 51-year-old me. As he sauntered towards us at a 9-year-old’s birthday party to which I had brought my then 11-year-old daughter, Meg, I had turned my head to give the impression I had not heard the remark.

Before the guy, who I assumed was a child’s dad, could reach us, Eliza ran up to meet him. From the corner of my eye I watched her panicked Are you crazy? What are you saying? look as she mentioned pointedly, “That’s another parent from school.” Then she called my name. I didn’t answer, still making believe I was engrossed by the girls running around the table with the bowls of chips, cookies, and M&M’s.

Eliza came closer and again said, “Lorraine.” This time I looked up and rose so she could introduce me to the person who thought I had given birth to her. Clearly he mistook me for someone who could be at least 60. This was not only disheartening, but something very new and strange for me, since I'd spent most my adult life looking younger than my years, which was both a gift and a curse.

The downside was that at work it was hard to be taken seriously because everybody always assumed I was a junior. When I’d tell them I had five, ten, maybe even 15 years in business, they looked at me as though I was fudging about how much experience I had.

On the flip side, nothing can compare to the heady feeling of being mistaken for looking youthful.  I was almost 30 when a sales clerk, barely into her twenties, said, “Oh I like your engagement ring.” She then commented that she thought I was so young to be getting married. Perplexed, I answered, “I’m 29.” Her eyes bugged out like a cartoon character as she giggled, “I thought you were my age.”

I started my last full time staff copywriting job when I was 32. The reception I received from my also newly hired art director, was as warm as a Sub-Zero.

I figured since we had to work together, I might as well try to get along. I invited her to lunch, during which we opened up about our job histories, who in the business we knew in common, then on to more personal things like whether or not we were married, had children and how old we were. She looked so relieved when she found out that I was not 26 - the age she'd guessed initially - but only four years younger than she was. That explained her standoffishness when we first met.

A year later, I was asked to supervise a junior writer, who gave me so much static and grief every time I tried to give him direction or guidance, that finally I just had to confront him on this matter. I explained that I was senior to him as well as given the task of looking over his work. He just had to deal with it. He explained that it was very hard for him to take orders from someone younger than his 28 years. I told him I was 33 and he started to laugh. He’d thought I was 25.

And so that was the life I was used to.

In my 40s, I began to look my age. But that was OK. I was who I was and had become comfortable in my own skin. As 49 set in, though, I started to change; some things were self-inflicted, others seemed out of my control.

Menopause was not my friend. I had blown up like a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, even though I was not eating any more than usual. It was as though, if I ate a grape, I gained two pounds. My doctor told me to, “eat less and move more.” This vague, one size fits all advice didn't help. To add insult to injury, I chose to let my hair go gray.

I was born with a beautiful, thick head of chestnut hair. Over the decades, my creative bursts have included playing colorist. I was jet black when I went through my NYC vampire period and my closet looked as though it belonged to Morticia Addams.

I was "Lucy" red for a bit, but the vibrancy was just too hard to keep up. I went back to various shades of brown. It had gotten to the point where I didn't remember what my natural hair color looked like and figured at that point it was probably salt with (fingers crossed) a whole lot more pepper. I decided to find out.

I made this decision while walking down the street, and realized I was fast approaching a neighborhood salon that accepts walk-ins. I instructed the first available stylist to, "Chop it off."

For months, I continued to trim my pixie ‘do until all the faux color was cut out and the real deal was revealed - a dark gray with hints of white in the back, and a crown of white that made me look as though I had a bag of cotton balls atop my head. Dull, dingy, used cotton balls.

Disappointment does not describe what I saw in the mirror. I had been so patient while my hair was growing out, so excited that I would not be dying my hair any more. Oh, the time and money I would save.

A friend suggested I go to a salon and have a professional try to duplicate the results on back of my head on the top. But didn’t that defeat the purpose of my new low maintenance au natural color?

Then I was mistaken for the mother of a contemporary and making a salon appointment moved to the number one position on my to-do list.

On the way home from the party, though, I saw a woman on the street with the shiny, silver locks I'd envisioned would be mine. I pointed her out to Meg who in her refreshing, yet annoying, candidness wanted to know why I wanted "old looking hair" and when I was going to “start looking regular again."

I didn't have to ask what that last part meant. My appearance was no longer that of the person my family - including myself - recognized. I had let my post-menopausal hormones win the battle of the bulge and like a PR maven, I had spun hair care laziness into sounding like the more friendly “pamper-free.”

My road back has not been easy or mishap-free.

I joined an organized diet program. Another place and time (like in the 70s), I could lose five pounds in a week. Now, even with weekly visits as well as planned and pre-measured meals, it takes six weeks to lose that much (or little, depending on how you look at it.) But as long as the numbers on the scale are "going in the right direction" as my weight loss counselor says, then I have reason to feel successful.

My hair was blonde for a bit due to the advice of an expert colorist who said that the lighter shade would make my multitude of grays not stand out as much as my hair grew. I believed this was sound logic, and also knew women who had switched to flaxen for that exact reason. However, I just couldn't quite get over feeling like a brunette with blonde hair. Chestnut once again rests upon my shoulders.

I'm not yet where I dream to be, but I am beginning to feel the effects of my efforts. A compliment here and there has shown we me others have noticed as well.

Traveling on a crosstown bus, Meg, now 13, and I at 53, walked to the front as we approached our stop. The anti-Ralph Kramden driver wished us a great day to which Meg shared, "My mom and I are going to the museum."

"This is your mother?" the driver responded. Then, with more charm than sincerity, he added, "I thought you two were sisters."

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel, FAT CHICK.