It’s been roughly 4 years now. Since I was young, I didn’t have many complaints about my facial features, but my wide face shape was a complex, and as I grew older my asymmetry got worse, so I got facial contouring surgery.
Compared to before surgery, the sensation in my cheekbones is slightly dull, but things like opening my mouth wide and smiling are no different from before surgery. My recovery after surgery also went smoothly.
I do somewhat suspect cheek sagging. Normally it doesn’t show at all, but whenever I’m under subway lighting, the shadows around my cheeks and mouth area look a bit stronger. But even this changes a lot depending on my condition... so I’m unsure whether it’s aging or a side effect. I wasn’t someone who was that horrified by a sagging face to begin with, so I’m not too worried about future changes either.
However, I do regret how rash I was, because I think I just went ahead with surgery for the reason that I couldn’t get over memories of being hurt because of my appearance when I was young. All I thought was that I wanted to be average; it wasn’t that I especially wanted to look pretty, so even after surgery I barely made any effort to dress up. I think I was just desperate to feel reassured that my appearance would be criticized less.
Now that I’m a bit older, have a job, and look back, I think using that money to make myself look better in other ways, travel to nice places, and help my parents prepare for retirement would have aligned more with my values.