On noses

I have always had a rough relationship with my nose. It is gargantuan. Not only that, it has a lovely little bump to it that makes me look like my ancestors were closer to birds than chimps. This has given me profile-photo-phobia. PPP. When I was younger, balls were drawn to my nose. I got to leave P.E. early several times due to a bloody nose brought on by a soccer ball in the face. Don't even get me started with dodge ball.

Because of the insecurities I have regarding my own nose, I can spot a good nose from a mile away. Some girls look at celebrities and wish they had their hair, boobs, stomach, blah blah blah. This is me: "Look at her nose! Look at that. How is a nose that beautiful even possible? My God, woman, you are blessed." And to be honest, the nose on a man's face falls in my radar too. My husband, Alex, has a gorgeous nose. Words cannot describe this nose. Angular, but not too big. Not too little. Strong but not dominating the whole face. Nostrils in perfect ratio to the rest of the nose. And, like the cinnamon sprinkled on a snickerdoodle cookie, little bitty freckles right across the top. Subtle freckles. A lesson that could be taught to my nose.

Is this going somewhere, you ask? Absolutely. My nose runs in my family. My mom has it. Her mom has it. I'm never going to get away from it, so I've decided to embrace it. I've always wanted to get a nose stud. They look amazing in cute little girl sized noses, but mine? I've always stopped myself by asking this question: should I really be drawing more attention to it? Well, in going with the whole embrace it theme, I got it pierced last Friday. This was my weekend:

Friday: Yay!

Saturday: Woo!! Did it!!

Sunday: Feels so great! Yess, look at this nose.

Later Sunday night: Crap, I think this might go against work policy.

Well, Monday morning I did the honorable thing and marched into my manager's office. She looked at me and I said (while pointing to my nose), "Look what I did this weekend." Exact words. She very nicely told me she didn't care but the clinic policy does. So our solution is for me to wear a bandaid over it until I can go put a clear retainer in the hole in a few weeks when it isn't brand new. Then, in 3 to 6 months when it's fully healed I can wear my cute stud outside of work and switch to the retainer while at work. She's been in good humor about the whole thing, which is great because right now I'm walking around work with a giant bandage attached to my nose. I haven't explained to anyone and you can just see the wheels turning when my coworkers look at me. It's impolite to ask about any facial blemishes in our society, so they just look at me and wait for an explanation I don't give. I got one, "Oh, are you ok?". I said "Yep." It's like the white elephant gift exchange I went to over the weekend. You can't resist picking a wrapped present because of the curiosity factor. Anything could be under that wrapping paper. Anything. Well, the same is true for my coworkers. I'm sure they are thinking, "What's under there? Must be bad cause she's not saying anything." And every day longer I go into work with a bandaid on my face their internal questions get more urgent. "What could it be? Must be bad if it's been there this long. Must be real bad. Do you think it's contagious? She wouldn't come to work if it was contagious, right?" I will tell them eventually but I'm enjoying myself for now.

Bandage nose. Awkward.