Plastic Robots

I received this holiday card from a dermatologist in Beverly Hills.  It is wishing me much happiness during the holidays, and in order to help me obtain that happiness I’m being offered a menu of discounted happiness treatments.  I can purchase fillers, Botox, mini face lifts and an array of other treatments I’ve never heard of.  The message is that I’ll be happier if I become a plastic robot.  It’s not just my former dermatologist that is sending this message.  The media, through airbrushing and anorexic actors, conditions us to think that a certain look is beautiful and ideal…yet that look is not attainable by a regular woman.  Consider that the average dress size of an American woman is something like a size 14, yet actresses in Hollywood are rarely over a size 0 or 2.  Real women, those with regular jobs and families, don’t have 4 hours a day to work out in order to maintain a small figure.  No wonder so many women in this country resort to cosmetic procedures.  It’s a shame.  People camouflage their true selves with Botox, fillers, plastic surgery, liposuction and spray tans.  They do this thinking that they are making themselves more beautiful, when all they are really doing is masking their light with synthetic band aids.

This is all on my mind as I approach my birthday in two weeks.  As I age, it has been more and more difficult to be convincing with my adamant position that women simply don’t need all this work.  This is because with each passing year I continue to look older, and other women my age continue to look younger.  Despite the fact that looking like a plastic robot goes along with them looking younger, they are still closer to the media-sanctioned “ideal woman” than I am.  And that kinda makes me sick to my stomach.

Nonetheless, I’ll continue to decline invitations to the random Botox parties to which I’m invited, and I’ll continue to refrain from fillers, injections and implants.  I’ll do this because I’m committed to living an authentic and genuine life, and how can one be genuine when they have masked their true light with freezing their face muscles and putting artificial substances into their body?  I’ll do this because I want a face that moves in synchronicity with the emotion in my eyes.  I’ll do this even though I sometimes will look into the mirror and wonder “how did I get so old?”

Read me on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-buckley/

Tagged as: Life changes, Transitions