36DDD

I got my first bra on my fourth birthday. I’d asked for one, because bras were pretty, and my mother had one, as did my grandmother, aunts and older cousins. They were all there when my mother gave it to me, what was called a “training bra” back then. It was white with a little pink flower applique front and center, and not much engineering involved. I was so excited that I slept in it that night. My own bra! I didn’t know then that bras served a purpose, that being to support the weight of breasts. My bra served the purpose of making me a member of the tribe of women in my family, since all of them wore bras.

The summer I was twelve, the need for a bra became very real. I went from cutting a sleek form in my fitted figure skating dresses to being barely able to zip them beyond the bottom of my shoulder blades. Even worse: the stares from others went right through the dress, right at my rapidly developing bustline. My mother and her sister didn’t have large breasts. The women on my father’s side of the family were large in general, so I never even noticed that their breasts were big.

My chest attracted the sort of attention I did not want. I wanted people to notice me for my athletic ability. Now, they noticed my freakish body, the body that now robbed me of my identity, my strength, my superpower: athleticism. Figure skating, ballet, gymnastics, swimming; my breasts took them all from me. I resented them. They were not a part of my body; rather, a separate growth that upended my life.

By the time I was fourteen, I felt like a Greek grandmother with my enormous pendulous breasts. Despite my best efforts at hiding under baggy tops and jackets (gone were my beloved cute little teenage summer tops), people stared. Men and women, boys and girls, they all stared.

Throughout high school, I made excuses for skipping pool parties and treks to the lake in the summer months with my classmates. Too ashamed of my body to participate in sports, I hid at home and sought solace in baking. And, of course, I ate my creations. Naturally, I gained weight, though not enough to be in proportion to the 36DDD bust that had taken over my 5’2” frame. When I gained weight, it just got bigger as well.

The good thing about going away to college is that since there is so much happening at once — meeting new people, learning your way around campus, navigating your new schedule — no one notices if you don’t eat, even for two weeks. And so I found a way to manage the size of my bustline. Between freshman and sophomore years, I lost fifty pounds — which meant I was down to 87 lbs, and a 34B! The next fifteen years were an on-off battle with eating disorders, and I had miles of brassieres to keep up with my ever-fluctuating weight.

At thirty-two, in a job with excellent health benefits, I had an examination to see if my health insurance would cover breast reduction surgery. While taking my “before” pictures, the nurse told me, “The insurance companies rarely approve this surgery at first. You’ll probably have to campaign, so prepare to and write lots of letters.”

I looked at other women’s “before” and “after” photos. My god. I thought I was big. My heart broke for these women. I thought of the stares, taunts, and comments they endured, the hell of shopping for clothes, the fun they missed out on, as I had. Each’s carefree adolescence, cut short.

As it turns out, my surgery was approved immediately, no campaigning necessary. It also turns out that a breast reduction is major surgery. Your entire chest is cut open. Recovery was tougher than I’d anticipated. I took off a month from my waitressing job to convalesce. Finally, the bandages came off, the stitches came out, and I got my first look at my new bosom.

My nipples stared right back at me in the mirror, rather than at my feet, for the first time in my adult life. “They’re so cute!” I blurted out. I couldn’t stop staring. I loved my new body, a body that felt like “me” for the first time since I stopped participating in sports, twenty years earlier.

After the scars had healed a bit, the “after” photos were taken. I looked at them alongside the “before” pictures. If it weren’t for the top of the familiar black and pink floral panties I was wearing the “before” photo (they shoot you from the neck down, no face) I would not have believe that was me, that those were my breasts. They were larger than some of the women in the “before” pictures I’d seen pre-surgery. It was only then I realized that for twenty years, I’d avoided looking at my breasts in the mirror. I’d refused to even acknowledge them. As a result, I now didn’t even recognize them.

I went to my place of work for a meeting with my boss, and saw in a mirror in my peripheral vision someone I didn’t recognize. I turned to see… me. Standing up straight. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t stood up straight in decades. I was always leaning, hunching, hovering — anything to create a way for my oversized shirts and jackets to form a protective visual wall around my chest. But there I was, looking ten years younger just for standing up straight, shoulders proud. I looked like the athlete I used to be, only twenty years older.

Finally, the day I’d long anticipated: bra shopping! I’d always hated bra shopping. When you’re big-busted, not only are styles limited, but there’s really one type of bra for modest gals: the ones with the sort of engineering that will manage (and hopefully, minimize) your breasts and not leave you with an aching back. There were “sexy” bras for big-busted women, but I never felt sexy in my body. Now, I couldn’t wait to try on every bra I’d only ever imagined wearing before. Fun bras! Racy bras! Flirty bras with matching panties!

I came home with a half dozen bras in various colors and styles, opened the bra drawer and tossed out all of the enormous, worn, faded, warped-wire engineering contraptions that I’d been wearing my entire adult life. I placed their pretty replacements in the drawer.

I turned to the old bras that lie in a defeated, rejected heap. My heart sank. I crumbled and cried and could not look away. That pile had loyally cared for, supported, and protected my breasts — the part of my body, the part of me, that I was never able to love. And there they were, tossed aside for younger, smaller, prettier versions.

The pile of bras remained for days. It was harder to remove them than it was my actual breasts. Those bras made me sad and ashamed that I couldn’t accept the adult body that I’d inherited. I decided that I owed it to these bras to live the life that my enormous breasts had taken from me.

Today once again, I swim and run and dance and simply move comfortably and unselfconsciously. Freedom in my body. I have never regretted my decision to have a breast reduction. And while I admire the women who love their bodies and their individual parts, no matter what shape and/or size, that was never my experience, try as I might for twenty years. In this time when identity overrides biology, I still identified as the well-proportioned athlete I’d once been. I am grateful that I was able reclaim that body, that life, once again.