Does This Haircut Make Me Look Relevant?

I dyed my hair today.

Not dyed exactly. It’s called “camo.”

“Your hair is 60 percent grey and 40 percent black,” my stylist explained. Camo will flip that around. You’ll take five years off, guaranteed.

For $60 I got five years back. Looking at the photo above, I might have overpaid. I don’t hate the look, but the swoop in the front makes me look like a middle-aged cockatiel.

I haven’t gotten Botox or skin peels like some of my friends, but I do darken my hair, lighten my teeth, and try to slim my stomach with intermittent fasting every day and Spanx on the holidays. I don’t think my wife would leave me if I didn’t do these things. In fact, no one would even notice. So why bother?

I guess if I stop, I’d be admitting something I’m not willing to say out loud. At least not yet.

I’m sixty-two. People say I look five years younger, but they’re just being polite. When they say I look fifty-seven, I know they’re really saying I look sixty-two. My goal is to hear someone say “mid-fifties.”

Mid-fifties means relevance. Mid-fifties means the corner office, where people do what you tell them to. Mid-sixties pushes you into the boardroom, where people write down what you say then do whatever the hell they want.

Mid-fifties isn’t really about how you look. It’s about where you stand. At fifty-five, people assume you’re on your way somewhere. At sixty-two, they assume you’ve been there and should be getting the hell out of there.

I shouldn’t complain. It was my choice to sell my business and move on. And I don’t miss the heavy workload. I chose to step off the track. But is it wrong that I want the optics of still being on it? Sitting on boards and writing essays is one thing. But it’s not the same as beating quarterly revenue projections.

This afternoon, fresh haircut and all, I stopped in a women’s store with my wife so she could get a dress for her upcoming business trip to Hong Kong. I sat in the husband chair, and the owner offered me a drink.

“Retired?” she asked, handing me a club soda.

What the hell? Is she even looking at my haircut? Why would she think I was retired?

I complained to Trish later in the car.

“I sit on four boards and write essays six days a week,” I said.

“Well honey,” Trish said calmly, “It’s 3pm on a Friday and you’re at a dress store with your wife…”

I just looked at her.

It’s easy for her to say. She’s in her late fifties and looks great. She’s also a CEO. Just because I sold my business and don’t have a job doesn’t mean I’m retired, does it?

Oh shit, it might.

I have an embarrassing memory from when I was in my twenties. I was on a rooftop restaurant looking out over Chicago’s skyline and I thought to myself, someday this will all be mine. It was a trite thought and I’m grateful I didn’t say it out loud. But now I sometimes wonder where that guy went. Is he dead? And if so, is that a bad thing?

It never became “all mine,” but I did okay. I built a business, a career, a family, and now I advise a few businesses and nonprofits. And while writing may not be the same as beating revenue projections, it’s not a bad gig.

Some days I wonder if I walked away too soon, like when former coworkers ask if I’m bored.

Other days I think this is exactly what I worked for. #livingthedream.

Depends on the day.

Either way, I’m not going to stop the camo.

That shit works.

Not on my age. But on the story I’m telling myself about who I am.