The Ravages of Youth
Fate here. First, I’m gonna answer a sort of general question I get a lot from people who are convinced that I deserve whatever legal and karmic action directed my way, and it’s usually asked on behalf of or sometimes by parents of babies and children who passed. Why don’t I ever step in to save them, is the gist of what they’re yelling and crying at me.
I can’t tell them anything too comforting. The threads of each individual’s life are made up of different materials, different fibers, and different strengths. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are or how much practice you have, all you need to do is touch a given thread and it disintegrates. Most of the time, it’s nothing personal, it’s just that the material I was provided with is unsustainable.
Now, onto the more typical sort of mundanities people like to berate me for:
Fate,
I was a cute kid, as far as kids go. Maybe not beauty pageant material, but enough that random strangers would stop my parents if we were out in the mall or at the park and coo over what an adorable little thing I was and how I was sure to grow up to be a real heartbreaker someday.
Then I hit puberty. As if the growth spurt that went outward before it went upward wasn’t bad enough, not to mention body hair so thick that my classmates made monkey noises every time I walked into a room, I developed horrible acne. Even I had to give the one bully who shared all my honors and AP classes credit for the time he told me my face looked like a topo relief map of the Himalayas.
I washed my face every day, twice a day. I tried every remedy I or one of my friends, parents, or doctor could think of. Benzoyl peroxide, accutane, tea tree oil, low-grade antibiotics, this special scrub made from Dead Sea salt, whatever. It would maybe help things clear up a little for a week or so, and then it was like my face would get used to it and start breaking out again. It was so bad that I didn’t bother getting senior pictures taken and refused to let anyone with a camera near me on prom night.
My mother told me she had bad acne in high school, too, and she eventually grew out of it, implying that I would too. It got better in college, but it didn’t completely go away. I maybe shouldn’t have been surprised that grad school made it worse, but I was unhappy when it settled somewhere between grad school and college levels of badness once I was done with school for good.
I’m about to be thirty and it’s still raging on. I’m sure it’s been a contributing factor in why I have a hard time getting dates, much less a relationship, never mind breaking somebody’s heart. I’m also sure it’s why I’ve been passed up for job opportunities I’d be perfect for, since most of them require a certain level of authority and experience and want you to look the part, and the only thing I look like I’m qualified for is busting gas-station and liquor-store clerks who don’t check IDs.
I know we all have our burdens to bear, Fate, but did you have to put mine on my face and make me carry it this long?
You think you’re facing age-related discrimination or at least the appearance of it? Try being older than your whole species as well as most of the rest of its contemporaries! Everybody including your own lawyers expecting you to be on point at all times, never allowed to make a single error in judgment because, according to them, you ought to know better!
You’ll have plenty of time to lament your squeaky-clean good looks or lack thereof, child. Let your perceived fresh-facedness be your guide as you fail - I mean, flail - your way upward.