I’m sure there was a time when I was young and full of collagen that I was adamantly against plastic surgery. “I don’t want to look like a whole different person,” I naively said. “I want to look like myself!” I was so sweet and confident back then.
Now, I would gladly look like someone else. I would have a face transplant like John Travolta and Nicholas Cage in Face/Off. Or, because the technology hasn’t caught up with a ‘90s movie, just have someone draw a really nice face on a paper bag and I could wear that over my head.
I had cystic acne for a while, and it still rears its ugly head at inconvenient times. I thought about how nice it would be to wear a burqa so I could still go out in public and no one could see my face. When my friend and I were growing up we’d stand in front of the mirror with our face and mouths covered, batting our eyelashes. We saw Aladdin at a formative age. It sure would be nice to zero in on one strip of my face rather than the whole damn thing all the time.
I got older and gravity came for my boobs. Theoretically gravity has always been after my boobs but then I had a kid and gravity came with a vengeance. Now, the first thing I’m doing when I win the lottery, yes, even before paying family debts and donating to charity, is getting my boobs lifted and set back into a place where God intended.
I got even older and then wrinkles showed up around my mouth (along with the acne…whyyyyy?) They got bothersome. My mom would say, and rightfully so, that I should have thought of that as I was smoking in my 20s. In fact, I hear my mom saying that whenever I even think about my wrinkles.
And then came facial hair. Just. Why? So I got some money and decided to have it lasered off. Me and my aesthetician have an understanding: my skin is a sensitive little snowflake and she can’t like, go hard with the lasering. But one time she was out, and the doctor lasered my face instead. And he did not hold back, zapping with intensity while telling me how the pain would be worth it in the end. Except for in the end my face was covered in blisters like I had an unfortunate incident with a crack pipe. And I had to go see my BOYFRIENDS (New Kids on the Block) looking unfortunate. Luckily it was dark and they didn’t get too close.
Back to the wrinkles. Eventually the lines around my mouth bothered me so much (you were right, Mom) that I got fillers. Which were painful, yes, but smoothed things out for a minute. And then at work I had to talk budget, and I didn’t like what the budget was doing to my forehead. I got Botox so my forehead would be stuck in a smooth rather than wrinkled position. And then I got some more fillers.
As I sat in the chair, getting poke, poke, poked, I had a thought: wouldn’t it be much less painful, not to mention expensive, if I just stopped looking in the mirror? Then I could pretend everything is fine. I could also do the mental work on accepting myself, but that will take forever and there will be no help for my face by then. So avoiding the mirror it is.
Until then, between the fillers and the Botox my 45-year-old face better not look a day over 30.
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