What if that's just everyone's opinion, man?

I have no idea if I'm "objectively" innately more beautiful than average.

I seem to look vaguely like Madonna whom the press notably has been uncommonly kind to when she is without makeup.

But both Madonna and I work at being beautiful. It's impossible to say that in our sixties, we still look good for our age "because we have natural beauty and were born that way."

After decades of living, it's not only impossible to determine how much we just got lucky, it's ridiculous to suggest we just got lucky or had good genes. Perhaps so many decades of working on it turned sow's ears into silk purses.

Because at this point, the only sane conclusion is that in our sixties, most of our looks are due to eating right, exercising, having taste, etc.

My mother grew up in Germany during World War II and was an illegal immigrant to West Germany, having fled East Germany with forged papers to do right by her infant niece and return the child to its rightful mother.

She began life with substantial baggage and I was a surprise package born several years after she was told she couldn't have more children.

She never gave me any impression she resented me. The start of her relationship to my father was rocky and I heard stories suggesting she was depressed a lot during her second pregnancy.

She treated me like a pretty little doll to dress up and she was always doing things like curling my hair.

Which maybe had less to do with me being innately cute and more to do with her life being better and her being happier and deciding to enjoy life a little.

If I was always uncommonly attractive, it's possible that's because someone worked at it from day one, starting well before I had any means to work at it.

But I never saw myself prior to her making me cute as a button, so I have absolutely no means to say what I "innately" look like "objectively."

I and everyone always saw the dolled up version of me with meticulously curled hair and adorable clothes custom sewn for me by a woman with taste doting on me.

So everyone believed me to be "innately beautiful." Me included.

And I don't know if that was ever actually TRUE. Maybe my mom just brainwashed me into seeing myself that way because she was tickled to dress me up now that she was convinced her husband would stay and life would be good.