BODILY MUSINGS

I know I'm not a kid anymore.   I don't think of myself as old,  yet I do think  about physical changes that bug me.   More often than not I find myself in conversations with girlfriends about various kinds of plastic surgery and whether this is something we would submit to.  Two friends said they would have liposuction in the neck area if they could take sufficient time off from work to recuperate.  Another friend sees her dermatologist every three or four months for Botox injections.  One of my family members had her eyes done, and another buddy had liposuction and now wears a size six.    A friend my same age had her first face lift in her late 40s, a second one in her late 50s and is considering a third,  although I think she looks great the way she is.


A face lift doesn't interest me at all.   I'm 68 and proud of it.  After all I can ride my bike 100 miles per week.  The only cosmetic surgery I would consider is a tummy tuck because I hate my fat rolls and would like to look better in clothes.  But I will never do it, that I'm sure of.   First, I would worry about possible harm to delicate organs in my body.  I also don't want to inflict unnecessary pain on myself and am not interested in the down time required to heal.   And I've seen some horrible botch jobs.  A few years ago I met a wealthy woman on our Arctic trip who must have been a beauty in her youth, but now she looked ten years older than her age because of the deep horizontal creases that spread across her face from ear to ear.    I wonder if she sued her plastic surgeon.  


This morning I heard Terry Gross interview a well known fashion photographer who said he could tell immediately which models had had plastic surgery and which models had not.  Those who had surgery didn't animate easily and lacked visual personality.   Presumably he was talking about face lifts since I don't think smaller hips or larger boobs can animate easily or have visual personality.  He wasn't passing judgment on cosmetic surgery per se, but he did have some comments that resonated with me.  


He said that plastic surgery doesn't change who you are on the inside, although it might make you like the way you look in your clothes.  You could hope that folks might respond to you differently and that friends might even like you more, but it won't change you as a person.  It won't change the way you think.  And it won't make you any smarter nor will people treat you with any more respect.   Any way you want to look at it, it's just a temporary thing because we are all getting old and can't hide it forever.    He said that what's really important is how you feel about yourself on the inside and accepting how you look on the outside .  And to tell you the truth I think that how we feel about ourselves on the inside counts more than how we think we look on the outside.     


Let me know what you think.