At various stages of a woman’s life the question of cosmetic surgery rears its head.  For a long time now I’ve been on the fence as to whether or not that’s a smart choice.

As a young woman I took pride in the fact that I did not judge my elder “sisters” – the ones who decided that cosmetic surgery was necessary in order for them to feel good about themselves.  There but for the grace of god, I thought.  My day would come and who knew how I would handle it?  Would I be able to look in the mirror and feel satisfied at what I saw – or would the temptation to look better prove too great?  And for that matter would I be able to afford to have anything done even if I really felt it was necessary?

Well friends – here on the down side of menopause – I think I can safely say that “the day has more than arrived!”

So far I have not succumbed to the lure of the youth-giving knife.  But not for the reasons that I would have anticipated in my younger days.  Back then I thought – maybe I’ll be that one fabulous looking person who needs no help whatsoever.  Sadly, that’s not the case.  I also thought that my principles – strengthened by a lifetime of experience – would make a superficial gesture such as cosmetic surgery be absurd.  Nope, not that either.

I’m holding off for two basic reasons and they’re listed in order of importance:

1. Now that I’ve had surgery that was necessary – I would never choose to have surgery that wasn’t absolutely necessary.  Partly because of pain, but also because altering one thing in your body tends to set other things in motion – and those things can be seriously unpleasant. The scar tissue from my hysterectomy is an almost constant reminder of that fact.
2. When I look in the mirror and see what could use a little improvement I realize that the list has become so long that I really wouldn’t know where to start – or end – and I sure as hell don’t want to end up like that freaky cat lady.  She was very pretty once.

There’s also the fact I’m kind of cheap and it’s a whole lot of money.  But who knows, one day I might look in the mirror and decide that it IS necessary surgery and money is no object.  I sure don’t look forward to that day.