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| When Bruce laughed at my white hair, I told him I was just trying to match his hair color! :-) |
But I almost did not post the photo because of...
...my nose.
After a tiny debate, I decided that it was actually a good picture; I look pleasant despite the powdered wig, and everyone who knows me has seen my proboscis.
I don't know which family member I inherited this member from, but there is no denying that I've got me a schnoz—not the kind you see on cute little actresses and models. The funny thing is that I probably wouldn't ever think about my conk if it hadn't been for junior high school (jr. high is a lovely place!). I didn't really think of it before then.
Once, when I went to a maturation program with one of my boys, the teacher-guy was talking about ways your body changes when you go through puberty, and one thing he said was that some kids' noses grow faster than the rest of their faces do. But, not to worry—your face will grow into your nose. I wondered if this was true of me.
In 7th grade a few kids—boys—made comments about my nose. I felt a little bad, but didn't think about it again once we got started on our lessons. But there was one boy who sat behind me in my history class who gave me the name "Eagle Beak," and he would. not. let it. drop. That was how he addressed me every time he had anything to say to me. So one day Kim and I were talking to Mr. Taylor (the 7th grade history teacher) after school, and this boy was there, and he was calling me "Eagle Beak" over and over again until finally Kim reached into my dance bag, pulled out my pointe shoes and smacked him on the head with them (and yeah, they are hard—made of "densely packed layers of fabric, cardboard, and/or paper hardened by glue.") I think she started to chase him out of the room, waving the shoes at his head... He quit after that.
Kim wasn't around in 8th grade, and I walked the mile home all by myself. For the first couple of months there was a group of boys who followed ten to twenty paces behind me and teased the snot out of me for the first half of my walk. (Huh. Bullies. Although I didn't think of it like that back then; they were just jerky, mean boys.) I took to ducking into the library, which was just a block or two from the school, and looking at books until I was sure they had gone. And then one day I had an epiphany:
Who cares what they say? They are just some really jerky boys, while I am actually a pretty cool person!
I don't know how or from where I pulled that up at the tender age of fourteen, but there it was. And I knew it was true. And when I quit hugging my books to myself, and walked with my head up instead of down, and didn't change my pace for them, they stopped!
But I have never really liked my nose ever since. Over the years I've gotten used to it; I don't really think about it too much. And, more recently, I don't even think rude things about it when I look in the mirror. It's just my nose. Not that I want my profile carved into a cameo or anything, and I do still think twice about sharing a picture where it's kind of prominent...
But, hey! Everyone sees my nose—or rather, they know it's there. I think maybe my friends—most people, really—just see me. And I'm a pretty cool person.
I think I am finally growing into it.
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