Letters to the Editor
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tennis anyone?
Cary I swear you are one of the better writers. Even when discussing the most mundane of things, you seem to flirt with the cosmic, finding truth in every situation.
As for the woman losing her beauty: it is better to have had it at all. Use the knowledge of that lucky privilege everywhere you go. It can surely make you a better person.
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We are how we look
It would be simplistic to say that our physical appearance dictates our personality. But it would not be wrong, either. The following is a brief discussion.
Most people have a "normal" appearance, i.e. unexceptional, neither ugly, nor misshapen, nor outstanding in any particular way. I am ignoring for this discussion the gawky teen years when growth patterns can cause a person to look "funny" or "weird" or otherwise "remarkable" for a few years, then it passes. There are consequences to those years, but that is the subject of a more detailed study.
When one has a physical appearance that is remarkable by itself, that becomes a significant factor in shaping personality. A particularly ugly person will respond in one way or another, with anger, withdrawal, depression, or some other way, but it will be in large part a reaction to the way other people respond to that ugly person's physical appearance. Fair? Of course not. Just observing that we all know that happens routinely.
Another way to be outstanding physically is to be noticeably good looking. The effect is magnified for a good looking girl. As she fills out and boys begin to respond to the shape and appearance of women sexually, the look and shape of a pretty woman becomes a way of involuntarily affecting powerfully the peple around her. As she becomes self aware, she has to respond to that effect in some way internally. The people around her confuse her physical appearance with who she is - e.g. a boy "has a crush" on a beautiful girl primarily because she is beautiful, while he fills out the rest of the story who she is as a person essentially from nursery rhymes. He wants to believe the best about her because she is beautiful. Think what pressure that creates for her.
I.e., her looks become part of her personality because the world around her insists on it. Her looks become a primary aspect of her personality because whether she likes it or not, every person around her, male and female, thinks of her first as pretty, then whatever other characteristics she may have.
Of course, as the good looks fade, as they necessarily must, that girl is going to have a personal crisis at some point. She has been led to believe by forces outside her that she and her looks are co-extensive. So if her looks are fading, then something fundamental about her basic nature is changing.
And it's only partly delusion for her to think that she "needs to keep up appearances." Having been shaped in large part by her looks, her self-worth and fundamental definition of herself are linked to her looks. Should that have happened in a perfect world? No, but it does, so let's deal with it.
The real issue is for you to recognize that your angst over looks is really an angst about who you are as a person. It's a real dilemma, not just puddle-headed silliness about superficialities.
I suggest the best approach is to give that angst its due: your self-image is intimately linked to your appearance because your environment up till now made it so. The objective is straightforward: to delink your self-image from the need to be pretty. You do that not by focusing on your phsycial appearance, whether to cater to your former beauty or to deny it, but simply to let go of it. Letting go means consciously setting aside the reactions of others as signficant and focusing on the incredible richness of yourself within. You accept that the world gave you gifts and support because of your looks, and then you let go of those gifts and that support. You learn to love yourself. That happens without a mirror. If you think about it, your self-image never depended on a mirror - focus on that.
TonyJ
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Cary's right
I have a friend who has always been stunningly beautiful. We traveled together once for a few months, and I got to live life in her shoes. Everywhere we went, people carried our bags, bought us drinks, offered us help and assistance. Sometimes this came with some sort of unwelcome sexual pressure, but not usually. Overall, people just saw this lovely woman and wanted to be nice to her. I am a very average looking woman. At the time, I was thin and young and had pretty hair and great skin, so I wasn't exactly being scorned for my looks. But she was something else, a level of beauty that made, not just men, but children, old ladies, everybody want to be nice to her.
I suspect that she will find it strange and possibly difficult when she is no longer very beautiful (in her thirties, and even after two children, she still turns heads). My friend is a wonderful person, not shallow or petty, but I don't think she understands how different her experience of the world is than other people's. So I have some sympathy with the letter writer. That said, I still think she should throw out her Cosmos and spend some time doing something. There's a good trick to dealing with self-pity and mild (not clinical) depression - go learn something. Give your mind something better to do than focus on yourself.
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Looks vs personality
Have you ever noticed that sometimes you meet someone who seems incredibly attractive... and the longer you know them, the less attractive they are to you? Or the opposite: you meet someone who seems average in looks, and find they get more attractive to you the longer you know them? Who wants to be around the superficially good looking, if the person is a jerk to all around them? Looks won't buy you love, affection, or companionship over the long run if they're just disguising an empty shell of a personality.
So I say...turn your attention outward a little and make an effort. Not to be beautiful just in looks but in personality. Light up the room with who you are, not what you look like. And don't worry about the reactions you get or don't get from total strangers on the street.