Verdict on Radiesse: Uhhhhhh . . . .

OK, so at some point I'm going to rot away like an old pumpkin, facial fillers or no. But before then, how far am I willing to go?

My experience so far with Radiesse is neither glowing nor disastrous. A good deal of what I thought were awesome results from the filler turned out to be swelling from the procedure. Now, if I could just figure out a way to have a permanently swollen face, I'd be forever young! Truth be told, the lines are back. Not like they were; there is more fullness around my mouth, but you have to be me in order to notice it.

That kind of bummed me out, to be honest. I didn't want everyone to know I had something "done," but I also wanted someone to say, "My, you look so refreshed! Did you take a vacation or change your hair?" Well, not a single, solitary soul has noticed anything whatsoever. My family and even my husband see no sign that anything changed on my face. They haven't skipped around proclaiming how young and dewy I look; far from it. As my holiday depression rages on, I suppose I look either the same or older, due to my Grinch-y misery when the sun don't shine.

Also on the down side was the fact that the needles hit some facial nerves, and I freaked out over the patchy numbness that affected parts of my face, especially the tip of my nose, my upper gum and my cheekbones. After much anxious Internet searching, I figured out that the injections triggered the "trigeminal" facial nerve(s), and that it's a "rare" side effect of facial filler injections, but it does happen . . . to a very lucky few. The numbness is pretty much gone now, but again, I don't have spectacular results to show for it.

The other down side is that there is just enough of a difference to make me tempted to continue the process. I know, I'm an idiot. But hear me out. Those lines were more like folds, and I think that I don't see spectacular results because there was a significant amount of correction that needed to be done, more than I anticipated--and I very quickly became accustomed to the new look, however subtle, and so now the rest of my face needs some balance. It's the Stendahl syndrome all over again; the story goes that someone gave the notoriously Spartan Stendahl a rich, elegant red robe for Christmas, and all it did was point out to him how dismal the rest of his possessions were. This created a rabid desire to upgrade his room and his stuff, so he did what he had to do to keep the peace with himself: throw out the luxurious red robe.

If you asked, I would tell you immediately what else I want to do: Coolaser for face and neck, a tad more filler in my cheeks, and maybe just a smidge more around my mouth. That's it, I swear. The lovely Dr. Ourian would agree that my desires are easily realized and very reasonable. But I know that this is the edge of a cliff. First of all, there is no money for such "facial maintenance" and second of all, the worst thing that could happen to me would be unlimited funds for such "touch-ups". I think that I will probably give in at some point in the next couple of years and finish the job that I started. Lord, my face is a job. Well, I guess it is. It's the job of giving oneself the gift of NOT BEING FRICKIN' annoyed every single time I look in the mirror.

I give my Radiesse injections a C+. Not great, could be better, but a solid effort, as teachers like to say when a student has not excelled in any way whatsoever. What's next? Nothing in the short run. Just me and the slightly dingy pink robe. If I could just get the right slippers . . .

Why I Suck as a Friend

OK, so here's an "After" picture, even though it's not a great picture. But that's not the subject of the post.

So, why am I a bad friend? Because I don't like to confront people, not even my husband. If I am hurt, angry, resentful or upset, I just let it fester. I don't let the person know how I really feel. That ball of negative energy grows and becomes infected, so the result is I end up avoiding the person/people in question, evading all contact, creating excuses, simply pretending that nothing is really wrong when in truth, everything is wrong.

Sometimes with a friend there is an elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge. We step around the bloated carcass, try not to look at it, but when it starts to stink, we have to say something, right? No, I just choose to leave the room and ignore the obvious. I have lost so many friendships because I am not honest. I avoid pain, and in the process I become lonely. My loneliness breeds isolation, and my isolation creates anti-social tendencies. When I get to that point, forget it--I will simply lock myself in my cocoon and ruminate.

I'm at that point now, where my lack of courage to confront issues with family and friends has created that huge, bloated dead elephant in the room. What did I do? I left the damn room and slipped out the back door instead of simply saying, "hey, guys, let's drag that horrid dead thing out of the room and go get a pizza!!"

Loneliness, resentment and anger are crappy companions. But they're all mine, until I find the courage and the spiritual insight to guide me along a better path.