Originally posted by clearwater
Hee hee, I have a consultation with a plastic surgeon today at 1:30. I am going to look like a kid again....I don't have the 4500 to 6000 grand yet,
but that's not that much.
Clearwater, I don't know how open you are to suggestion, but if I may be so bold, I'd like to offer an alternate possibility...
My sister was in a very abusive marriage, with a story similar to yours, including a lack of parental support from her own parents. To our parents,
and her husband's parents, abuse from the husband was just a part of "how a man kept order in his family". Thank god my family has grown beyond
that stance in the last decade or so, but it took a lot of ugly confrontations, self-introspection, and drama in general. My sister's ex never
experienced that reconciliation and redemption.
It was much the same thing, mental and physical abuse on my sister, always coupled wth the message that no other man would ever want her again, and
that she was "lucky" he put up with her. She made excuse after excuse until the day he laid into her while she was holding their infant baby. Then
she finally told my brother and I about it. I won't go into many details, but let's just say they involved a baseball bat, and he won't leave his
car in my presence anymore.
My sister went a bit nuts after that. I'm not into judging my sister's attractiveness, but she was in a LOT better shape before the marriage. 2
years married to that arsehat of hers ruined her in many, many physical and mental ways. After the divorce, her first instinct was to find another
man, and she started hopping from bed to bed, trying to find a would-be husband and father to replace her shattered marriage. She couldn't understand
why men would only use her for sex and then split on her.
So she figured the solution lay in surgery. She'd fix her weight first, then her scars, her face, her chest, etc... She started saving, and then told
me her plan. Thank god, it was one of the few times she actually listened to me.
The problem with surgery to fix alleged "flaws" in one's looks is that you will NEVER be happy with the result. Ever. You'll immediately find
another thing that needs fixing. You will throw thousands, and thousands, and thousands of dollars towards doctors in the hope that if you could only
fix that one last flaw, your life will change, you will be happy, men will want you, you will be happy with yourself, etc...
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yeah, maybe it'll help you land a lay for the night, maybe it'll cause people who never met you before to let their eyes linger a bit longer, and it
might even give you a tiny, temporary boost of confidence that lasts only so long as it takes for you to discover a new imagined flaw that must be
fixed. You'll never get happiness with plastic surgery, you'll only get a temporary fix, and end up even more miserable than you were beforehand
when you realize it didn't fix your life. Thousands, upon thousands of dollars, towards something that has no lasting value, no resale value, no
emergency source of funds, nothing.
So here's what I convinced my sister to do instead. Get an education so she can support herself and her child. Invest that money into a future for
herself and her boy. With her meager savings and Dad's help, she started off going to a junior college, majored in computer science, and dad and I
tutored her for as long as I could, but eventually she surpassed my meager skills, and even those of the junior college, and got a scholarship to a
major university because her GPA was insanely high, constantly.
She put all her anger, resentment, self-loathing, fear, and hope into that degree. She worked her ass off late into the night, and graduated Sigma Cum
Laud from SMU, and I couldn't even begin to touch her knowledge on the subject.
She's now a Brass Hat being groomed for a VP position making arseloads of cash. She's known as the single hardest and smartest worker at her entire
site. To give you an idea of how valuable she's made herself to the company, they gave her a 17% raise last year. That may not sound like much, but
considering you have to significantly overachieve your goals to get a 3% raise at her company, that's should give something of an idea.
She has an incredible amount of self-respect now. She never did do anything to fix her body, in fact, she's rather overweight, and she still has some
plainly visible scars. But she's beautiful to look at because she carries her head high, she provides very well for her and her child, and what's
more, she KNOWS she's earned the respect of her entire family and co-workers and friends. I'm so proud of her I could bust. She went from a horrible
place in the world, and instead of giving in to the self-loathing and trying to hide her problems with plastic, she attacked her situation head-on and
beat it into the ground, buried it, and grew crops on the remains.
God doesn't give a damn what you look like, and frankly, no one here does either. What really matters is what you do with your life, your self, and
your future.
If you really want to be in a better place, invest that money towards bettering yourself, either through education, or if you've already got one,
then put it towards an intelligent investments or an interest bearing account. Money may not buy you happiness, but it can sure act as a fine vehicle
towards that destination. And the confidence a
real investment in yourself brings will far, far outweigh the ephemeral flesh.