There is no right age to try to look like Britney Spears

My aunt, 52 years old, has gotten a facelift.\nBefore the surgery, she was already perhaps the youngest-looking 52-year-old on the planet. She wears capri pants and spaghetti-strap tops and looks better than a lot of college students. A lifelong, religious devotee of tanning booths, she has yet to develop any sign of the wrinkly skin they warn us about. When we go out to lunch, she flirts with waiters who don\'t believe it when she says she\'s a grandmother. \nBut for some reason, my perfect, funny aunt, with a body I would love to have when I am 52, feels the need to look younger. As if there's something wrong with looking 52. So she risked unnecessary surgery with all its possible complications in an effort to look the "right" age, whatever that is. \nWhen the operation was over, she looked like she'd been beaten up. For all she knows, she was; the doctors could have just taken her money, put her under the anesthesia and punched her in the face a few times. That's what it looks like they did. But they told her the pain would wear off in about ten days.\n"I'll have ten days of pain," she said, when she could talk again, "But then I\'ll have ten years of beautiful skin."\nI think her skin was plenty beautiful before, when she looked like a really healthy 52-year-old, but the important thing is that she's happy, which she will be, once the swelling goes down and she looks even better than before. But I'm still bothered with one question: Why would anyone want to do that to themselves? \nMaybe I don't understand the answer because I'm young, so I can't really imagine what it's like to want to look younger. Right now, wanting to look younger just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to go through a painful operation. It doesn\'t seem like enough to run the risk of something going wrong, of spending the rest of your life horribly disfigured just because you want to look the "right" age.\nWhy can\'t the right age be 52? Some 52-year-olds, like my aunt before her surgery, look great; why can't we all strive to look like them instead of like Britney Spears? The problem is that nobody can look like Britney Spears except for Britney Spears, who does a great job at it, which is why we hate her. \nAnd if the "right" age is 20, I'm doing it wrong. I need a tummy tuck and a Thighmaster to get back on track. Doctors say it's best to get a face-lift early in life, in your 20's, while your skin is more malleable. Maybe I should get one of my own. I could update every ten years; that way I'll be able to look younger than I really am for the rest of my life. \nBut I'd rather look the way I'm supposed to, instead of believing someone else's idea of the way I'm supposed to look and trying to match that. And I still wonder: Why do people do that to themselves? I understand wanting to look younger and prettier; what I don't understand is why they want to. I don't know why anyone wants to look like Britney. I just know that they do. I'm no Britney fan, but I want to look like her. I just wouldn't cut off the end of my nose to make it look more like hers.