My nose?

When I was 42 years OLD, my husband, from whom I was divorcing, said to me:: 'your life as woman is finished, not one would have you any more.' To old? Of course, he was in love with a 17 year old, more then half our age.

A little later, I looked at the last photo he made of me, in profile, 'is this me? This long nose?' I was always aware of my freckled skin, but it was the first time I noticed my nose!

Going to visit my father and friends, to another country, I told of my sorrow to my step mother: 'no one wants and will want me any more!'

'No problem, she replied, I know a doctor who can arrange your nose for you and shortly you'll have a nice one!' Of course, she knew that would make my father angry at me and that is what she wanted.

Exactly as she expected my father told me.
'No way you touch your nose! '
' I am adult now, more then 42 years old, I do not need someone else to tell me now what to do or not do.'
' I disherit you if you go!'

I went away from their house, crying, deciding to sleep at my aount's. He had an older friend, a charming, 80 years old man, loving my 75 years old aount dearly and making even dinner for her, for us, that evening.

'So what is the problem?' he asked me at dessert.
I told hime my sorrow and about my nose and my father.
'Your nose is part of your personality, you'd not like to loose it, it is great, makes you charming and interesting,' he said.

'But the men...'
'Do you look at them?'
'Look?'
'Choose the one you want, look at him, then look away and let him come after you, fight for you.'
'Ah!'
'You'll have as many as you want!' he told me. 'And leave your interesting face as it is!'

I kept my nose, my stepmother lost her battle.

And when a few month later I went to the US, yes, many men looked at me, and I did not feel OLD any more.

My nose did not bother me ever since.
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I am preparing this story loosely translated English, for my next ToastMaster's meeting.

I did give a lecture of it in the French countryside ten years ago and it was accompagned with lots of laughs from the audience. A year ago, as I played it in a small café in Paris, no one found it funny.

When I wrote it the first time, real story fragment from my life, I thought it was full of tragedy, but uplifting at the end. I am waiting to see the response to it next week.

At Flickr, where I published it under my photo, I did have already feedback, one as I hoped, expected! People telling what they were bothered about on themselves, others telling about the character counting and not the appearance, and yet others encouraging. Of course, on the Flickr the images got the attention, then, some of them read the text too.