“Surgery” a short story

My gramma asked me to help her kill herself. It was kind of a weird thing for the universe to throw at me considering she was the only person who knew I had seriously considered suicide at one time and the only person who’d helped me get through it. How I got through it was I got plastic surgery. She helped me pay for some of it too. So I only had to get myself into somewhat marginally fucked up credit card debt. Because I will cover this later but I will say you got to protect your credit with vigor, it is a passkey to get through society and acquire the things you need like housing and transportation but sometimes you have to sacrifice your financial life so you can actually live and then your finances end up rising out of the flames like a phoenix anyway because you have such a better frame of mind that prosperity consciousness just comes naturally to you.

But back to my gramma. She was sick and her quality of life was bad so I couldn’t tell her no. She wanted to move onto to her next incarnation where she could be in a nice fresh young body. I understood that. And I realized she had every right to want to go with some peace and dignity and freedom from needless suffering. She wasn’t giving up on life, it was just played out was all. So I told her I would need to prepare myself for a couple days and she said ok but hurry up this body ain’t gonna to kill itself. I laughed. She had heard that joke in a movie where someone says something like “this dick isn’t going to suck itself”. She could be funny.

First off, I had to ask my gramma if she wanted to see a therapist which she didn’t. Because I wasn’t going to just kill my gramma without trying to put her in therapy first. She didn’t need one though. She died two days later, when we were about to purchase a pistol.

I had researched a bunch of different methods and determined that blowing one’s head off with a gun is the best way to go. It’s instantaneous. Plus it was not an option for my gramma to overdose on pills because she is a sober alcoholic. My gramma has 47 years sober on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and she would never destroy her sobriety. She was going to die sober. I understood that too.

So gramma asked me to get a gun. So at first I was going to buy a black market gun because I obviously didn’t want the cops to find out the gun registered in my name had been used to kill my gramma, even though I don’t think they would have found any kind of motive for my doing it. But then I figured I could get all flustered about having to lie and they would wonder how this infirm old lady managed to purchase an illegal firearm so I realized I was just going to have to buy one at a store. I could just say she stole it out of my nightstand when I was going to the bathroom. Besides, I wasn’t going to be the one who did it. She said after I got her all comfy and arranged attractively on some pillows in her bathtub (she wanted to be as comfortable as possible but still make it easier for the people who have to clean up crime scenes and dead bodies), that she would give me plenty of time to get somewhere public so I’d have an alibi and then she’d do it.

She had to go to the hospital the next day though and she died that night. I was with her the whole time. I love her and miss her but am also so relieved she is at peace. I have had moments where I need to cry too because I miss her so much but I know that’s normal. As I said, she helped me a lot when I was suicidal at a young age. It was because of my looks. I was born ugly. That is just the truth. My dad isn’t bad looking but I’ve seen family photo albums and on his side of the family there runs an unfortunate resemblance to the Frankenstein monster. They are big tall kind of weird looking people. My body was ok. I could get a little overweight sometimes, but I had a strong athletic frame and I was pretty good about staying fit and healthy. No real problem there. My face was a problem.

I had a big bulbous forehead, which is often what happens when you’re born with a buckethead (a big head). I had a giant wide jaw, like pretty heavy and square. My dad once said you could crack walnuts with it. He didn’t mean any harm, it just slipped out one time. And I had a gargantuan nose. I just got a really unfortunate combo of heavy features, small sunken eyes, and a giant fucking nose. And not a cute femininely shaped large nose either. It did not fit my face, it just looked like someone had put a pair of those gag glasses with big noses on my face while I was sleeping.

My parents were relatively healthy, mentally and physically, and not unattractive. They did their best comfort their kid. My dad would tell me not to dwell on my looks and tried to make jokes sometimes in order to get me to not take myself so seriously. He didn’t have a lot of sympathy for stuff like this because he was a combat veteran who had been in the Army for practically his whole life. When he saw I was feeling down he would nurture me in kind of a stop being a pussy, let’s take a hike for six hours kind of way. Both of my parents would also say I was cute and they meant it. They actually loved me, their objectivity regarding my looks was not reliable because I was their progeny. But I was still damaged because I was not considered attractive by the opposite sex. And my girlfriends would try not to hurt my feelings but I knew they were secretly glad their nickname in high school was not “Lurch”.

I did initially develop some hatred toward men due to being rejected and being the chick they wanted to fuck if I kept a bag over my head etc but ultimately I couldn’t really blame them. We all want to have sex with someone we find attractive, even the ugly people. Just because I was ugly didn’t mean I wanted to fuck other ugly people, although that is usually what happens (unless one of them is rich). But generally what happens is two ugly poor, working or middle class people find each other and fall in love. Rich ugly people just buy an attractive mate.

There are so many exceptions though. There are some people who have such good kind souls or are really funny and as a result they find many people attracted to them. Great personalities are awesome. And confidence is sexy. Men (and women too) who are skilled at martial arts have a quiet confidence and self assuredness that makes them desirable regardless of size, shape, or looks. And then there are some people who are spiritually evolved; they have this major spiritual vibration and that makes them so very attractive to others; due to the spiritual energy. Spiritual energy is often interpreted by others as sexual energy; this is because being near someone with high spiritual energy causes one’s kundalini to rise (the prana or life energy of the universe rises up from the root chakra and out the top of the head). They think this means they are sexually turned on when really they are having a spiritual experience instead. Meditating regularly also profoundly raises your spiritual vibration and besides getting to enjoy higher consciousness and inner peace, one becomes more attractive to others as well.

I understood this stuff but I couldn’t help myself, I wanted the physical animal I lived in to be better looking. My self esteem was just so fucking low. I wanted to lock eyes with a man and not have him look away in terror haha. I wanted to feel desired and have regular sex. I read some self help type literature on the subject but that didn’t help much until I came across an article this one lady had written. This was the turning point for me. This woman wrote about how she had suffered throughout her life for being a somewhat frightening specimen and even though she was married she still couldn’t believe her husband wanted to be with her. And she went on and on about teenage trauma and how it was still harder to get jobs and promotions and help in stores etc and how she is actually still pretty bitter about it. But, she wrote, she believed plastic surgery was shallow and morally wrong.

It dawned on me. It was dishonest to still be obsessed with one’s looks yet at the same time adamantly against plastic surgery. Passing judgment was way more shallow than simply admitting to herself that she deep down wanted a doctor to operate on their face or body. Like just be honest if it bothers you then go get yourself a nose job or whatever so you can start putting your energy into something else more constructive.

As long as you don’t smoke, many different types of cosmetic procedures have low risks of complications. Getting some plastic surgery is not going to cause the assassination of a beloved world leader or something; it isn’t going to hurt anyone to get some work done on your fucking face. After reading this person’s long in-denial treatise on why she is such a better person because she’s been unhappy her whole life, I knew what I had to do.

So in my early twenties, instead of committing suicide or worse being a bore, I got work done. I researched plastic surgeons and found some great ones. I found docs that were patient, and wanted to answer all my questions. Yes they wanted a paycheck but they also genuinely wanted to help me. This one doctor shaved my jawbone down and reshaped my chin. Another doctor gave me a rhinoplasty (a nose job).

I did not get any collagen or other fillers in my face. It never looks right. I didn’t want to resemble those aging celebrities with melted candle faces. I also refused any botox. Botox paralyzes muscles and nerves in the face. It’s awful, people can’t make normal facial expressions, they look like frozen wax figures. And when botox wears off, people look way worse the muscles didn’t get enough exercise and so their skin is all droopy. Also, botox often permanently paralyzes the nerves and muscles, causing all kinds of weirdness like sagging eyes or caveman forehead or just an unsettling odd blank expression that one is stuck with forever. Just don’t get botox ever is my advice.

Let’s see what else. Oh yeah and I got laser resurfacing on my face from the intensive acne scars I had. I forgot to mention those. I had borderline disfiguring acne in high school. It was actually during the zitty times in high school when I first seriously considered committing suicide and then again in my early twenties when the scars were still darkly pigmented and deep. The rejection I got from boys was just bad. And the cystic acne zit pustules were very evil and painful. I decided I was going to slit my wrists in the bathtub but I was so worried I wasn’t going to do it right. Apparently when people try to slit their wrists the correct way, you know vertically instead of horizontally, if they survive they sometimes have fucked up handicapped hands because they sever the tendons in the wrist connecting to the hands. I became convinced I was somehow going to fuck up my suicide. That may be the only reason I survived. That, and alcohol and other drugs always made me sick to my stomach. One glass of alcohol and I felt nauseous. I hated the way pills made me feel all groggy and dizzy. There was no way I’d be able to OD on that stuff. I guess it wasn’t my karma to be an alcoholic. I was grateful I wasn’t born with that genetic disease.

Anyhow, everything took almost a year to finish and heal from. My parents helped me pay for some of it. My gramma gave me about half the money I needed! The rest I put on credit cards. Some of the debt I was able to make deals with the credit card companies for and just charge them off, some I just had to wait the seven years for the outstanding debts to erase off my credit. My credit looks ok now but it took ten years to repair so I would never advise it unless you just got to. Real quick I need to say something about universal healthcare. We as Americans should have it. I believe my procedures should have been paid for by the government because they improved my mental health and quality of life. But beyond stuff like that, there are people who can’t afford urgent life saving operations and treatments and they end up in terrible debt just trying to survive. No one should ever have to go into debt to pay for healthcare. In the United States, the number one cause of bankruptcy is medical debt. We need universal healthcare now.

Okay back to my story: With my new face I went from being seriously a 3 to a 7 ½! ! Even an 8 on a good day with good lighting. I got so much more dates! I got so much more sex! First I kind of went nuts and had the adolescence that was denied to me before. I sucked some dicks pretty indiscriminately let me tell you. But I calmed down and ended up dating three very nice kind attractive gentlemen. I still am just having civilized short serial monogamous encounters because I couldn’t even imagine settling down, unless I really fell hard in love. I don’t have any desire to procreate. So I’m just enjoying being relatively young still (early forties) and dating. I might settle down about five years from now. Or maybe not, who knows. All I know is I’m happy.

And it’s not like the romance part of life is even guaranteed. Because lots of times when people fall in love it’s only to do some specific karma together like raise a child or whatever and then the karma is over and you don’t want to be with them anymore. I have no romantic illusions about anything. I’m just so happy to walk into the grocery store and get checked out. By both men and the lesbians who work at the organic supermarket I go to. It feels wonderful.

And I find myself happy alone with my own company too. If I’m between boyfriends, I don’t feel needy or imcomplete. I dig myself. I’m a better friend too. Not all self centered. I can be there for others in a way I never could have before. In fact, I’m volunteering at this wonderful organization that takes inner city kids to state and national parks. Sometimes my dad comes too and leads the kids on hard core nature hikes.

Work got so much better too. I am an accountant haha which is pretty funny seeing as how I was willing to butcher my credit for the time being. Obviously one can repair one’s credit by making regular payments and having a full time steady job. But since the oligarchs have sent the jobs overseas and are hoarding all the money, I would say the most important thing one can do to repair one’s credit is to vote for progressive liberal candidates. Seriously if you want a job with good pay and benefits and a union you got to vote for Democratic socialist people.

Here’s why: Democratic socialism is the balanced middle way. Capitalism without regulations leads to corporate feudalism, i.e. a tiny amount of people at the top have stolen all the money and exert control on the rest of the population. No capitalism leads to authoritarian state, i.e. a tiny amount of people at the top who have stolen all the money and exert control on the rest of the population. Democratic socialism protects democracy. Remember, Labor produces Value. Billionaires stole our money which only has value because we labored for it. Democratic socialism is how we take it back.

Okay back to the original story. So after I was all healed after surgery, my gramma really helped me navigate my new existence. She was calm and sweet and let me tell her about all my new adventures and hopes and fears. One thing she was adamant about when I started dating was for me to never wear high heels. They mutilate your body she said. My gramma was a staunch supporter of sensible shoes and I agreed with her after I saw the xrays of women’s bodies who wore high heels- they seriously had deformed feet and bunions and hammer toes and hip problems. As well as poor circulation, nerve damage, swollen weird foot veins and bad backs. Body mutilation is usually a form of mental illness. It’s weird fetish shit. My gramma just kept saying that the natural look is best and it’s what most people find the most attractive. So I just invested in some high quality natural fiber clothing pieces that fit my body flatteringly and also got some cute flat shoes. I did get a few high heeled shoes but made sure they had wide thick block heels. Still not the greatest for one’s skeletal system, but much safer and healthier. I actually just wear a tee shirt, joggers, and sneakers most of the time when I’m going about my daily life. I get asked out all the time.

I also quit my job working for an accountant-in-a-box corporation and went into business for myself. Now in other developed countries, regular accountants don’t even exist because the government just sends their citizens a document each year saying you owe this amount. You don’t have spend money and time trying to figure it all out, the government does it for you. It would be that way in the US too but accountant corporations lobby the Congress every year to keep it this fucked up way. This is all going to change pretty soon.

Anyways, I have carved a niche market out for myself as an accountant/ financial advisor/ money manager for some wealthy people I met while I was getting my surgeries done. The wealthy always need financial advisors and they trust me, because we met at the plastic surgeons’ office. We saw each other sitting in the waiting room with stitches and bruises and bloody gauze hanging out our noses. It formed a bond haha. I’m always real up front with these people though and tell them if they try to get me to hide their money overseas to avoid paying taxes and shit like that I will report them. It may be grey area legal right now but it shouldn’t be and the laws must change. In the near future, people will go to prison for attempting to park their profits in the Cayman Islands and other places. So anyway I just have a small client base of liberal rich people clients and I’m making a good living now.

My gramma loved hearing about my new blossoming life and she truly did end up being my best friend. As I started making more money I took her on some trips. We went to the Grand Canyon and to France to see the Palace of Versailles. She wanted to go to Kenya and see wild elephants and so we did that. I was able to pay her back the money she gave me for my work done and then some (I also paid back my folks too. I took them to the places they wanted to go too and we had a really good time. But the deep down truth was my gramma was my favorite person to travel with. I was closest with her.)

She supported me through everything and I was very lucky to get to be around her. Gramma I love you wherever you are. And I miss you. I’m wishing you the best new life wherever you decide to reincarnate next. Thank you for helping me so much.