"There could be so much loneliness in going back to an era your friends have all left."
For a laugh I picked up a book on appearance/beauty from 1967. The perspective is middle class, strongly opinionated, sometimes hilarious (the main author was a TV show host). The late 60's are easy to relate to--some current trends were just beginning; the 50's were over. Although we no longer have women wearing hair rollers in public, the 60's already had string bikinis for women to gossip about. Etc.
The thing is, there are some true gems of wisdom that the authors probably didn't even intend. Because I am addicted to finding practical application for advice, I can't help generalizing some of the ideas. The first quote continues, "The people who have to drive a hard bargain, who have to look in every store, and have to try on everything--they're the ones who get alligator shoes with the mismarkings, the bag with the flaw in it." This is kind of what I've been learning about relationships. That kind of analytical-perfection-idealism is a really killjoy, dreamkiller. I know. I'll always analyze things, I'm sure, but I'm learning to keep my mouth shut when I'm about to squash spontaneity with an irrelevant look at "the other hand".
The second quote is from a chapter on plastic surgery. She's all for it if it's for professional reasons. But she doesn't think just anybody should get it. "...When I'm alone I have to admit that I take my hands and I push up the lines around the mouth and under the eyes to see how I look. But I realize when I do this that I am looking at a face from the past and I don't really want to go back there. There could be so much loneliness in going back to an era your friends have all left."
Sometimes I wish I'd gone through college differently. Been more honest with my dreams. Been more ambitious rather than grade-conscious. Sought out mentorship from my professors, instead of always showing them what I already knew. But I had a great college experience; I wouldn't trade the phases of learning I went through. I wouldn't trade the dating experience I had. Unless I have a specific reason to continue education, I can't hang on to that world. If I wish I'd been a more humble learner then, the answer is to be a more humble learner in my current situation.
"The thing I worry about though is the sexual drive that makes some women go about changing their features. If she thinks she will suddenly become attractive to a man and be the sex symbol of the neighborhood just because her nostrils have been shortened, I think this is a woman who needs psychiatry more than plastic surgery..."
"...And the indiscriminate desire to re-create the past through plastic surgery is something that worries me because a personality change does go on and must go on through all the phases of a woman's life. And if through surgery her appearance gets out of step with her personality, I think she's going to have emotional trouble..."
"...But there is a very distinct warning I must sound. There are people who seek under the guise of plastic surgery a new social, marital, economic, professional, or sexual rebirth. ...If [her] bad nose is turned into an excellent nose, yet [s]he remains unfulfilled, [s]he has just been cheated of [her] single most satisfactory excuse for [her] personal failure."
I'm an experimenter, and sometimes I wish I lived in the city so I could do crazy things with my hair and people wouldn't worry that I was having an identity crisis. But I can't deny that sometimes I've imagined that a change to my appearance would give me a new chance at life. To lose weight, to get a new wardrobe. In fact, it is sometimes true that external changes can effect life changes, if the change makes you less self-conscious. But if the change makes you less yourself, more self-conscious, then you're in trouble. I am gradually phasing in a new wardrobe as well as making other changes in my life. The reason is that I have decided to take steps toward being a responsible adult. So many of my choices are colored by just a few passing words of a dominant relative or friend. So I'm in the belated process of figuring out what I like, where I want to go, what I want to create.
Told a dear friend of mine-- "It's like a sort of selfishness. But not a selfishness that puts yourself above others--but... puts yourself above yourself." Very sensical in my head...but perhaps requires some defining. What I mean in the second phrase, is that you're getting off your arse in order to be more fully you... in order to participate more fully in what life brings.
Sometimes it's helped me in life to accept who I am ...as I am. But there's a downfall if that goes too far. Because... frankly... you can't NOT be you. In other words, your everyday choices do affect who you are. If you read all the time, you're one who reads all the time. And what you read will affect who you are. If you mimic somebody, it's still you because you're the one mimicking. If you decide to go to a coffee shop once a week, that becomes part of who you are--and, even after you stop, may be a nuance in your personality.
People rise out of terrible circumstances saying "this is not me! I am more than my past, I am more than my abusive parent, I am more than my own bad habits!" But in mediocre circumstances, it's easier to just stay put. "This probably is me. And how dare I be dissatisfied with who I am? Others have it much worse. This is me, I need to accept that this is and will be me. If I have this or that selfish urge, I might as well follow it because that's me. And others need to accept me the way I am."
I do think people need to accept each other. But not so much "the way they are" as "for who they are." And in regards to one's own past, there's a difference between accepting what was (which is good to do), and accepting the effects of that past on the future. Progress is marked by acceptance despite any number of failures, plus an optimism that will always keep trying, will keep exploring, keep trusting in God's goodness and ability to change you from the inside out.
I have quite a list of things I've failed to do. But nibble by nibble, I'm throwing away the trash, tuning into my very own dreams, and gradually, by the grace of God, changing bad personality habits. One thing I have to bear in mind, being so analytical, is that it's more efficient to do something inefficiently, than to not do something at all because you're so busy figuring out the most efficient way!
The most amazing feature of grace is patience. The patience of God. The patience of people. I would not be so patient with myself. God is great.
