Babyface
I barely even recognized my ten-year-old face when I looked in the mirror!
It all started when I noticed that my nose was slightly bigger than it used to be. I inspected myself on Zoom calls and in the mirror; I studied my Facebook photos from college: yes, my nose was definitely changing. I scheduled an urgent appointment with my plastic surgeon who confirmed the diagnosis: preliminary nose droop. Cause: age. Prognosis: droopier by the day. This will not stand!! I roared as I rose from the examination table. The surgeon and his nurses followed me to the operating room, scalpels raised like pitchforks, and beep-boop-borp, finally gave me a nose I recognize.
Six months later, after my new nose had healed, I noticed with alarm that my eyes were significantly farther apart than they used to be. I pulled out my fifth-grade class photo: yes, my eyes had shifted a worrying amount. I barely even recognized my ten-year-old face when I looked in the mirror! I cried a bit at the injustice of it all and trekked back to the surgeon. No problemo, he said. An easy fix. I didn’t take rigorous notes, but as I understand it, the procedure involved popping my eyeballs out one by one, enlarging my eye sockets, and then replacing my eyes back in the now-larger sockets, this time closer together. He filled the extra socket space with fat he removed from my stomach (smart!).
After my new eyes healed (with only moderate vision loss), I immediately noticed the real issue: my now closer-together eyes were swimming in a face that was much too big. I moaned softly and attempted a frowny face as I drove back to the surgeon. Ah, yes, this is a common request he said as he drew dashed lines down my cheeks. We will simply shave down the face. He paused. We will also slightly reduce your skull. Simple enough! My brain was just sloshing around up there, after all. It would benefit from a correctly-sized container. For the final time, we marched back to the operating room.
I’ll admit that I was feeling nervous, but now that my bandages are off, I can say with certainty that I absolutely love my new face. My surgeon used my newborn photo as a template for the head-shrinking procedure (HSP), and looking in the mirror now, I experience almost no facial dysmorphia. I’m the same baby I’ve always been, but now my outsides reflect it. I think aging gracefully is really whatever you make of it: for me, it looks like a baby’s head on a 40-year-old’s body, and that feels right. I’m finally happy. Or at least I will be after my limb-shortening procedure.
