Village Squire, 1977-08, Page 34P. S.
I'll just learn to live with
what I've got I guess
I guess I'll just never be "with it".
I mean the other day I was listening to
the radio, the Betty Kennedy show on one
of the Toronto stations, and there was this
whole long interview with a cosmetic
surgeon. That, for you equally un -with -it
souls out there, is the socially acceptable
name for a plastic surgeon. The difference
is that plastic surgeons usually spend their
time sewing people back together who
have been badly deformed by accidents or
other causes. Cosmetic surgeons just try to
improve what imperfect mother nature
gave each of us for physique.
The man was going on an on about his
work the fact that he performed hundreds
of facelifts a year that he filled out
bustlines here, deflated them there, that
he added to backsides or reduced them and
did a hundred and one little tricks to make
people look better than they really were.
And, he assured the listeners, it was all
quite reasonable in cost, even if it wasn't
covered by O.H.I.P. Just a few hundred
(seven I think it was) for a simple facelift
and more according to the difficulty for
such things as a nose job. He added the
fact that there were about 30 such
practioners in Toronto, all kept quite busy
and that the practice was becoming more
fashionable.
Now if I wasn't such a slob, I should have
been rejoicing and rushing right out to sign
up. After all, I certainly have need of his
services. Heck, I have so many things
wrong with my appearance that I should
donate my body for practice at the cosmetic
surgeons' school. It would probably take a
whole class their entire internship to turn
this wreck of physique into a decent
looking specimen.
But I guess I've just lived with this body
too long because I couldn't get worked up
over the idea of changing it. I mean one
way to kill any such thoughts quickly is that
"reasonable cost" the doctor talks about
but even if it was $3.95 for a nose job, I
don't think I'd bother. Lord knows if
anybody needs a nose job it's me, but I've
lived with this Mount Everest of noses for
30 years now and somehow I'm used to it.
I've taken enough cracks, both real and
imagined about this beak over the years to
know why people would want to change
their appearance. There was even a time
when I might have been tempted if I'd had
the chance, back in those teenager years
when every one of my seven million
-- 11 VTT.T.A GE SOUIRE/AUGUST 1977.
freckles made me ache to have clear skin
(or alternatively, I used to wish the freckles
would gang up to give me a nice solid
brown colour instead of the pastey white in
winter and burned red in summer that I
usually sported). Those were the days I
learned to hate mirrors. I still find myself
very uncomfortable in one of those places
where your image is reflected in six
different mirrors from every direction you
turn.
I avoid mirrors as much as possible
nowadays. I've learned to live with a less_
than perfect. (Ed. note: now there's the
understatement of the year) physique. I've
gone so far that I also save myself a fortune
by not worrying about wearing the latest
fashion. I wear my shoes until they fall
apart. I have some shirts in my closet that I
had when I got married, and I get to the
barber about half as often as I should. To
people meeting me for the first time, I
must look like a walking fashion horror
show but I think my friends have learned to
accept me as myself and my enemies need
some more ammunition anyway. As for
myself, I've developed a sort of faceless
mental image of myself over the years. I
see myself not exactly as handsome, but
not ugly either: a sort of faceless wonder
who exists only in thought.
These people who run around getting
facelifts etc. are always worried about their
image. Frankly, in the past few years, I've
been too busy doing things to be worried
about what people think about my image. I
know that there must be some people
chuckling when they see me and some
perhaps even laughing but as long as I
can't hear them, what harm does it do, and
if I'm too busy doing things I think are
important, then how am I going to have
time to hear them? As far as I'm concerned
now, if they have so little to do that they
can sit around and laugh at the physical
appearance of others, then it's their
problem not mine.
These are the compromises that we all
must learn to live with. Sure if I had good
looks, I'd probably glory in them and
wonder how all those ordinary less -than -
beautiful people managed to get along. But
when you don't have it, you pretend you
don't need it, the same as an ordinary soul
doesn't see the need to be a genius. No
matter what you're given to work with in
this life, you've got to learn to live with it.
If you can't, it's a psychiatrist you need,
not a cosmetic surgeon.
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