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Diane Keaton

My Looks Are Fading and It’s Okay With Me

“My looks are fading.” She said. It wasn’t meant to illicit pity, nor was she fishing for a
compliment. It was a statement of fact, a pragmatic woman who is looking for a
few fillers in the creases around her mouth and a dab of botox around the
corners of her eyes.

Yes, your looks are fading, so are mine.

We’ve known each other our entire lives, we’re staring at
39, we’ve fed babies and watched our perky breasts settle into sad parodies of
their former selves. Our waists have stretched and mostly flattened out again,
but, still we are looking at forty. She is fearful, I am free.

You see, she was the pretty girl, I was the entertaining one.



Much like Diane Keaton I wasn’t the pretty girl, so I did
have to work on my fucking personality. In middle school it wasn’t fun with all
the Stacie’s who dotted their i’s with bubble hearts and teased their flawless
blonde hair so that it waved at the sky just so. I didn’t rely on my looks, as I was the vaguely ethnic child
in a sea of blondes with frizzy hair that didn’t want to cooperate, I never felt
ugly, but I knew I wasn’t the pretty one.

Perhaps my unprettiness will save me from myself. I’ve botoxed and recovered nicely, I’ve
tried wearing makeup and toyed with the idea of an eyelift. I’ve talked
girlfriends out of surgeries, all the while wishing I could have one sans pain.
I feel sorry for my neighbors who have mutilated their faces, engorging their
lips and breasts and stretching the limits of their dermis. All over the
country they would be seen as surgical disasters, in my hometown of Los
Angeles, they are celebrated and put on television.

She trots off to the surgeon for a light dose of botox and a
half a vial of restalyne. She loves the restalyne and leaves a message in my
voice mailbox about how it’s the most wonderful thing anyone can do for themselves.
I should try pampering myself a little more.

Instead I take the $1,400 and spend a night in a swanky
hotel, with my husband and my kids. He can’t see my wrinkles, when we talk he’s
staring right into my eyes.