Monday, March 07, 2011

In a word: Noses

Word suggested by my cousin Jen

Monty's nose -- it's cute

I've never been a fan of my nose.  It's big and wide and has a rounded tip.  Combine that with early onset of cystic acne that lasted well into my late 20s, my nose has always been my most hated feature.

When you hate your nose as much as I did, it creates a problem for your self-esteem.  In high school, I wore my hair very long and mostly covering my face.  This did two things: hide my acne and hide my nose.  It also made it increasingly difficult to see as I only left one eye showing and this made it increasingly often that I walked into things.  But at least I hid my horrific nose!!

In my Grade 10 art class, we needed to do a self-portrait.  I put it off for days and days, but finally had to do it.  I sat in front of my mirror and drew.  Curly triangle hair, half-up half-down poofy bangs, dark eye makeup and A HUGE NOSE.  I handed it in to be marked and it came back a few weeks later with this comment, "8.5/10 Why is your nose so big?"

Question of my life, teacher whose name I do not remember.  Question of my life.

When my acne cleared up (after a year long medication ritual that sucked very much) I realized that my nose was just part of my face.  It wasn't ginormous, it wasn't horrible, it wasn't gross.  It was just me.  My nose was bigger than some people's and smaller than others.  It was just mine.

Since then, I try not to think about it much and (expect for the times I view it in the dreaded 10x mirror) I've come to terms with it.  I didn't pick it (well, I do now) but it's mine for the long haul.

And it's only going to get bigger.

4 comments:

  1. I'm happy my word got used. :) And the 10X mirror sucks. Nobody's face should be given that much scrutiny.

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  2. There is a reason my avatar pix doesn't include much of my nose. I got my dad's nose, and I've always been self-conscious of it. I've finally gotten used to it, and decided that there are certainly people out there with bigger, more crooked noses than mine. It's part of me. My sister, my aunt & my dad all share it, and we've managed to get through life just fine.

    So, cheers! Great post.

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  3. You can pick your nose. You can pick your friends. But you should never pick your friends' noses.

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  4. What interests me here is that I have never thought of your nose as anything other than a nice, normal nose. So are we all doing this? Do we all have something we see - or used to see - as glaringly obviously hideous and yet...it's nothing like what we imagine?

    ReplyDelete

Crap monkies say "what?"