“Never shall a young man,

Thrown into despair

By those great honey-coloured

Ramparts at your ear,

Love you for yourself alone

And not your yellow hair.”

“But I can get a hair-dye

And set such colour there,

Brown, or black, or carrot,

That young men in despair

May love me for myself alone

And not my yellow hair.”

“I heard an old religious man

But yesternight declare

That he had found a text to prove

That only God, my dear,

Could love you for yourself alone

And not your yellow hair.”

–  For Anne Gregory  by William Butler Yeats

It is true that I never wanted to be anyone but myself.   As to how I appeared to others, I took it for granted that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  It didn’t matter very much because I thought the man who was meant for me would find me beautiful.

Eventually,  I stopped taking it for granted.

I don’t want to miss out on the prince with my glass slipper in his hand.  For that, I have to dress up, show up, and be discovered.

Most of my friends don’t even notice that my nose has been improved.  The physical change is subtle.  But the change in my being is profound.  For the first time, I feel that I am meant to have the face I see in the mirror.  I don’t want to revise anything.

I don’t want to transform myself into some other creature, no matter how fabulous.  I feel confident in being myself.  It is still fun sharing beauty tips with Claire and the others.  But little by little, I find my own look.

I think there is a time, a very short time, in the life of a young woman, when it is optimum for this to happen.  It is biology, and at the same time it is magic.   As with all things magical, you have to take it on faith.