Boobs

I hate them.  Mine.  I hate my boobs.  I know I'm supposed to love them, embrace them (literally or figuratively?), be grateful for them.  I am none of those things.  Mostly I'm annoyed by them.  I have been for almost as longs as I've had them.  As far as I can tell- other than attracting my husband and nursing my son- they have been nothing but trouble.  

I am not a small woman.  Never have been, never will be.  The years of baggage, volumes of words, hours of tears and frustration allow me to write that phrase nonchalantly- even as I feel my heart well up in my chest just a bit.  I have struggled with the body love/hate relationship as long as I can remember.  At the end of the day, I can cope with my thighs, my belly, my chickenwings.  But I want my boobs to pack up and ship out.  The infamous boob sweat, the impossible to find supportive sports bra, the fact that they are in my face during yoga class.  I said when I was 16 that after I was done breastfeeding (how I knew that was in my future, I'm not sure) I would go under the knife.  I resolutely hold that position.  Can't wait.  Take 'em and run.

But there are moments that I wonder... why?  Why do I have this driving desire to part with a piece of my body?  If it's not for vanity, than what?  There certainly is the practical part (the fit of dress shirts, the incessant bouncing, the need to wear a bra at pretty much all times).  But if I'm honest it's also about the "accidental" two hand frontal plant during touch football, the adolescent guys who would ask for just a feel, the junior high teacher who once asked me to "jump once and bounce twice", the hundreds of men who feel like it's appropriate to stare at my chest as I walk by as if there were googley eyes pasted on my nipples.  I want that gone too.

And then it returns to my body image struggle.  The struggle all women have- expressed differently, felt similarly.  The fact that I so stubbornly wanted to "magically" be the same size I was prior to getting pregnant that I refused to go and buy new bras.  I wore stretched out, uncomfortable ones for a year- ultimately so I wouldn't have to face up that my boobs were EVEN BIGGER.  I mean, seriously.  So when I finally faced up to the fact that I am days away from having no time to go shopping and I'm doing myself no favors my strapping the wrong bra on- I found myself being measured and studied and tucked in by a lady in a bra store.  The same lady who tried to sell me a nursing bra that turned my sore, overworked boobs into torpedos a la 1954 was sizing me up- and selling me a bra a size bigger than the one I was wearing.  Ack.  So I swallowed the lump in my throat and paid up.

I have been sitting here- trying to tie this post up with a neat little bow.  Some upshot, something profound.  And what I'm left with is more of the same.    These "beings" attached to my chest which have taken both physical and emotional tolls have also fed an nurtured a child.  There is also nothing particularly mystical or magical about having them taken away as I know much will still remain even in their absence.  For now, nothing more to do than pack 'em into pretty, supportive containers and take them with me.  That and work on letting the rest of it fall away- loving them a little more, accepting them a little more, caring a little less.

And finally- a video amidst the thousands of "naked tits hardcore boobs porn" hits that I got on you tube (I should have known better).  A video that pretty much sums up the tenderness as well as the struggle to find public acceptance of nursing.  It's sweet.