Living with a Deformed Nose

Lately, I've been thinking about visiting the plastic surgeon to see if my nose can be returned to its original shape. The inflammation from rosacea has created a very ugly growth on my nose that I've been living with for 5 or 6 years.

I haven't done anything about this because... well, I suspect it would cost a lot of money to visit a plastic surgeon. 

Does it matter what an old man looks like?

I no longer chase after women. If I did, they would be over 60 years old with plenty of their own physical issues. And, I'm leading a fairly reclusive life. The only people who see me regularly are my daughter and my grandkids. In restaurants and stores, I'm now one of those invisible people who simply isn't noticed.

I have X amount of money in savings to last me the rest of my life. Might make a pretty appreciable profit on my house when I sell it and that might provide me with a larger nest egg. For now, I'm paring my expenses down to the bone and not buying anything that I don't need.

Years ago... well, it may now be a couple of decades ago... I was a fashionable person. My face was symmetrical and attractive enough to appear in the newspaper from time to time. I think that Myrna's death was the end of that.

Sometimes, I think it's best just to wear my facial battle scars as a sign of the great struggles of my life. My face now reflects that battle. I am no spring chicken.

Other times, I think it might be nice to be normal again, to not be ugly.

My grandchildren will never know and remember me as an attractive and young person. They won't even be very interested in what I was until I am gone. Grandparents are important at the beginning of a grandchild's life and once again at the end. In the beginning, grandparents are a necessary pillar of support for a dependent child. At the end, as we reflect on our lives, grandparents are part of the story of who we are and where we came from that we revisit. The elderly quite commonly become very interested in their genealogy for this reason.

In that great middle of life, grandparents are irrelevant and forgotten as grandchildren marry, work and raise their own families. 

These last years of life are about accepting one's irrelevance and mortality. I'm not complaining. (Well, sure I am... just a little!) I didn't miss out on anything. Like everybody, I wish that I'd had more of... everything. 

Maybe, once the money from the house sale comes in and I'm settled in the in-law unit with my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids, I'll take some of that profit and have the nose fixed. I'm thinking of at least visiting the plastic surgeon over the summer to find out what it would cost to excise that ugly blemish.

For the moment, I am resigned to being ugly.

Comments

[Dad Bones]

It's a tough call. I considered laser surgery for all the veins on and around my nose. After researching I decided the improvement in my case wouldn't be nearly good enough to justify the money nor the discomfort of having a sore nose until it healed. I'm getting by well enough these days with a tinted cream.

It was a problem when I was in my 40's and 50's. The women staring at me in a bar tended to be more horrified than interested, which I understand because they surely didn't want anything like that happening to them.

I had a cousin who was born with one arm and he had very little sympathy for me. He had learned to make do with his disfigurement and handicap to the point where none of us who knew him gave it much thought. In fact he was usually the dominant one in most groups.

Other guys don't give a damn what we look like and I'm thinking you've acquired more than enough skills to mesmerize women with or without that little bump.