Smile

Do you look similar or very different from how you looked ten years ago?

This is one of the NaBloPoMo questions for October.  I'm using it out of order.  Deal with it.

It's also a little bit of a cheater question for me.

I look quite a bit different than I did 10 years ago.  Or at least to me I do.  But, I look different than I did 20 years ago and 30 years ago.  Some of it, probably most of it, is just aging.  In my mind though, there is another reason why I have looked different as I've aged.

Twice I've broken my jaw.  Once the upper from the nose down and once the lower snapped off right where the joint is.  I've had my face "revamped" a number of times.

It goes kind of like this.

Born-baby face; break jaw-repair-new face; break jaw again-repair-new face again; repair some lingering issues from first break-new face again; repair more issues from first break-current face.

I'm not complaining.  It could be bad and actually it really isn't.  It sounds dramatic and such, but it's not.  It could have been something that made me bitter and such, I decided not to let it.  

I won't say it didn't shape me in a way.  It did.  I'm not sure how it couldn't.  I'm sure it plays into my odd mix of vanity and lack of care about how I look.  There are a lot of stretches where I don't look in a mirror or when I do, I only look at certain parts of myself.  I look at my eyes, but not my whole face.  It's odd, but it's my life.

I don't think any of my faces have been bad.  They are all mine, all me, after all.  

So I guess it makes you wonder, just exactly how much of your identity is skin deep.