I Have A Big Nose

When I was very young, I was teased for having a large nose. “It’s like a mountain on your face.” “Can you smell China?” “Your face must weigh a ton.” By the time I was in High School, I had decided I would have plastic surgery as soon as I was old enough. I desperately wanted to have the dainty, delicate noses my friends had, the button noses all the pretty girls had, and felt like the unsightly mound in the center of my face was the only thing people noticed about me.

Sometime in my junior year of high school, I started a geneology project going through my family tree. I knew my family was German because of all the times I cried to my parents about my nose. “It’s your identity with our family. Why would you not like something that defines you?” Uh, I don’t know, Mom. Maybe I don’t want to be defined by the size of a facial feature? Anyway, my grandmother had kept family pictures datings back to the early 1900s. One picture that sticks in my mind is my great-great-great grandfather Zenidakr... uh... Zenaduka... His nickname was Zed. In Grandpa Zed’s picture was a stoic black and white german man with dark hair, bright eyes, and a large nose that looked exactly like mine.

I’m not sure why this impacted me so much, but here I was looking at an old photo of someone I had never met, but we looked so much alike. Here is this complete stranger, and I shared a bond with him that can only be claimed by a small community of people. In that moment, I no longer cared about the teasing and self-loathing of my appearance. Anytime I would start to feel down, I would remember my grandpa Zed.

I now love my nose, and I love telling the story about how my siblings and I inherited this feature. I got my nose from my Grandpa Zed, blue eyes from some freak gene my grandmother has (everyone else has brown eyes in her family), my curly fluff of mermaid hair is from my other grandmother, my hands are from her as well, waist and legs from my momma, and sarcasm from my dad. I haven’t figured out where my feet shape comes from. My sister and I are the only ones in our family with our specific toe and heel shape, and it’s quite strange. Ironically, my soul mate has different feet from the rest of his family, too.

I’m a huge mishmosh of features and temperments that can be traced through my family for years, and my children will carry on these traits into future generations. How crazy is that? To think that 200 years in the future, I will have a great-great-great grandchild who will look just like me, but they will at the same time be a completely different person. Humans are amazing, and I hope you learn to become fascinated by your traits as much as I have.