Average Girl

Chapter 2 - "Face Fixer"

When I was ten years old, my mum told me what exactly plastic surgery was, and why everyone in Hollywood seemed to be getting it. She explained that they used it to "enhance" themselves, or simply put: to make themselves look better.

As a young girl, starting to see what the world truly expected of me, I found myself in awe of the people who could just fix everything about themselves so everyone could love them. I realised I wanted to be like that, and I wanted to have the option of choosing if I wanted be prettier. That night I sat in my room writing in my fluffy, pink diary and I had an idea. I wrote down two things:

When I grow up I want to be pretty.

When I grow up, I'm going to have enough money to make sure I'm pretty.

One was my future career, because like every other ten-year-old, I thought I could be literally anything, even a unicorn.

The other was how I was going to achieve said career. I had just learned about the wonders of the medical world, and I found myself thinking that I would always have the option of getting my face fixed surgically if I needed it.

From then on, I found myself treating every magazine like a bible. I looked at all of the beautiful celebrities, and I used all the tips the magazines gave me, and I saved all of my pocket money.

While every other kid in my year was buying lollies and chocolate I was putting mine in a large tin that lived under my bed and had the label "Face Fixer" on it. Every night, before I went to sleep, I would get out the tin and count all the money inside, smiling with delight at each increase in number, and every morning I would wake up and say a cheery "Good morning!" to the tin.

The boring tin with my life savings inside became my best friend. At the time, I thought that was perfectly normal. I mean sure, everyone else had real friends that they talked to and hung out with at school, but I didn't need them and besides I knew I would have plenty of friends flocking to me once my trusty tin was cashed in for that glorious plastic surgery.

When I turned twelve I jumped around my room because I had finally gotten my period and I was getting boobs, so that meant I was becoming a woman and I was closer to being beautiful.

When I first turned thirteen I asked Mum for a makeup kit and the latest Girls magazine. She gave me both of these and I cried with happiness. I tested out my makeup with help from Youtube and the magazine, and I failed dismally. I later became the master of makeup, by using my weekends as ways to practice all the time.

Makeup was like magic. It transformed dull, pimply-faced me into an almost pretty young woman.

When I turned fourteen, I got a job at the local supermarket. I earned barely anything, but what I did earn was put mostly in my "Face Fixer" tin. I scraped little bits off the top of my earnings to buy new lacy underwear sets, makeup kits and anything else that helped give me the impression that I could be attractive.

None of it ever worked quite right.

I'm seventeen now. I still have my "Face Fixer" tin. It's there for a rainy and it's so full of money that you can't even hear anything rattle in it. I still religiously check.

I still want to be beautiful, and I'm still holding out hope for the plastic surgery. Everybody judges celebrities because they go too far with it, but I won't. I only need enough to make everyone love me, and when everyone loves me, then I can love me too.