peace with the inner fiend in the mirror

a woman is like a diamond - she has to be cut to be beautiful.not hollywood beautiful, just look closer to home. mother. you'll agree that self sacrifice and suffering do somehow transfigure a woman and make her more beautiful. but when i first heard this expression, it was not the discussion of anything vaguely related to some shit like world peace or procreation. the person i heard talking, with a hint of irritation and defiance, was going on about plastic surgery.

the conversation went something like that - " i looked like a monster you know! it's like i was born with an 'F' on my beauty card. So what if i secretly wrote a 'D' over it?" demanded this woman. "some women are so ready to judge us because they feel like we're cheated. but you didn't know this: i cut through my own skin and bone, without resorting to magic tricks to become BEAUTIFUL!"

ok so this vain old auntie ( not the school auntie) goes on and on about being beautiful. but i felt something else. before you go saying that the auntie was just plain obsessed, tell me this: have you ever felt ugly before? have you ever looked in the mirror only to find a fiend staring back? i have. sometimes, for the longest time, i was convinced that i was one of the ugliest human beings ever to roam the earth. i had crooked teeth, my nose looked like what you would find in a kway chap bowl and my skin was so rough an ant would simply trip and fall while walking over it. i was a fiend.

if you ask me now what it was like to feel ugly, i'd say it's the most self effacing experience in the world. i would avoid looking into mirrors and places with reflective surfaces. i developed an allergic reaction to the camera because i did not want to leave any evidence behind. i almost totally avoided people.

last time, cosmetic enhancement was the reality for people in hollywood and korea. all i could do was maintain my self enforced exile, soaking in my own misery until i found a new bowl of misery to jump into.

today, everything can be fixed, for a bit of money. the average joe and jane can make a date with the surgeon and emerge looking like a million dollars. i think that our decade now holds the record for the most aesthetic procedures ever done.

this whole thing circles back to the conversation of that vain middle aged auntie. why would women cut themselves up? men sometimes but the topic was about a vain auntie first.

i thought about this issue, and last night, i looked at all the beautiful women backstage. i wondered if 20 years down the road, would any of them really step into the dark side? some have aged gracefully, the others are vibrant with youth, sparking intensely and lighting up the stage with their infinite amounts of charm. but this is all superficial. it's like the old saying - don't judge a book by its cover.

is this plastic movement a quest to find the other fabled counterpart? a partner of equal beauty but zero character? an apple ripe on the outside but rotten at the core?

NO! why? because if you gave me the best surgeons in the world and stylists - God Forbid! - i'm never going to take that route. i'm going to say the most damning thing just to get it out of the way - i love my kway chap ingredient nose, the hairs in it. i like my lopsided eyelids and i love my big face very much! i adore my high pitched 'GO LA! GO LA!' voice to bits. it sounds so sweet to the ears that listening to it excessively will give you diabetes. and if you think that's disgusting, i don't care man.

that being said, if you're still hell bent on following in the footsteps of that vain auntie due to the advancement of medical science to make up for nature's sloppiness, i won't presume to judge you either. i would rather have an apple core than a really red apple which is swollen with with maggots as a friend. all i have to say is this - at some point, all this is going to stop. you have to make peace with the fiend in the mirror. the truth has always been in the mirror since the day you first looked in it. and you're going to have to say "well, this IS me."
i know, because i have.