5 Days and Counting

Dear Boobs:

Remember when we first met? I was in the sixth grade, and I wasn't conciously aware of your presence until my mom pointed out that you needed to be restrained. I didn't know what to do with you, you silly things. All of a sudden I had extra stuff on my tomboyish chest? I took you, along with my mom, to the store and began the lifelong process of finding the "right" bra. I'm still involved in this search. You guys skipped right over the training bras and straight to the big girl sizes, just like the overachievers that you are.

I remember standing in the dressing room, tears streaming down my face, as my mom pulled and tugged at you to fit you into that contraption some like to call a bra. I hated it! I hated having this thing digging into my shoulders, my back, sweat collecting in little pools in the middle. I wanted to squish you, to make you go back where you came from. No one else that I knew had to wear a bra, no one else had to endure the stares as the sixth grade boys started realizing that, hey, this girl has something on that we can snap! and we can sometimes see it through her T-shirt! and everything to do with you was so funny to them. Not to me, though. I would come downstairs on school mornings, and my mom would make me march right back up to my room and put a bra on. No matter how I tried to hide the fact that I wasn't wearing one, you guys always made your presence known. Thanks for that one.

As I got older, and some of the other girls got some, I began to feel a little bit better about you. The day I had to get a size C bra was a day for celebration! Now you were big enough to really grab attention, coming into your own so to speak. Everyone was envious of you, no one else had the size and girth that you did. I was proud. I strutted around with you as far out as you could go. I wore shirts just to show you off.

But here is where you kind of screwed up. See, you just kept growing. We bypassed everyone else, and every year I had to get another size up. Suddenly, you weren't so fun anymore. You were like a weight pulling me down with each step. I didn't like the stares anymore, because that is all that people saw. You. I'm up here too, you know! How about sharing some of that spotlight? I had entire conversations where eyes never lifted above you. I know that you loved the attention, but sometimes I had a pretty smile on my face and I wished they could see that too.

And still you were growing! Activities that I used to take for granted were becoming harder and harder. I developed deep grooves in my shoulders where I had to hold you up. You flopped around painfully anytime I tried to run or jump or dance. I know you liked the activity, but my back didn't. My back and you don't get along very well at all. In fact, my back and my shoulders have formed a hate club dedicated to you. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that, but there it is. Maybe you should have thought about that earlier.

And now, you are just a curse. And guess what... in five days we will be saying our final good-byes. I won't shed any tears, but you might. I think I've given you a nice home for the past twelve or so years, kept you clean and nice smelling, made sure you were warm at night, and gave you a little action once in a while, just because I know you must get bored just hanging around all day. But the time has come to say farewell. It's been a (painful, embarassing, inconvienient) great ride. Thanks for all the memories.

Sincerely,
D.

Chickensh*t

Okay, I realize that the last four or five posts I've written have been all about my boobs. In fact, maybe I should change the name of this site to "The Great Boob Caper of 2006" or "Where's my Boob?" But seriously, this is like all that I think about. Even if I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll roll over and think... "In a couple more days I won't be able to sleep on my stomach for a while," or something like that. But today I thought of something. There is just NO WAY that I can chicken out now. Not now that I have told everyone in the free world that I am getting the surgery done. I have told friends, family, co-workers, the internet... I would be such a dork if I let all these people down. People are COUNTING on me to tell them all about my boobs. Or lack of, I guess. So I'm stuck, and there is no way out. I didn't say this before, but I did go and have a consultation once before, when I was about eighteen. I saw the doctor, the insurance company approved it, and everything was good. But when the doctor's office called me to schedule the date of surgery, I gave them a vauge, "Can I call you back?" and then I never did. Because I chickened out. I thought of someone cutting at me, at a very sensitive part of me, and I never called again. Until six years later, when the problem has only gotten worse, but now I have better insurance. Sigh. I should have just kept my big fat mouth shut.

In other news... my apartment is like a burning inferno in Hell. I swear, it is so hot in there I can't stand it. We are on the second floor, and A* thinks that the people below us still have on their heat, even though it has been in the 70's the last couple of days. I don't know what it is, all I know is that it was over 80 in there last night, and that was with a fan in the window and both windows wide open. I laid on the couch in a T-shirt and panted, and yelled at A* to "do something!" because I was going to melt. I hate sitting in a puddle of my own sweat, especially when the most taxing thing I did all night was change the channel when it was time for America's Next Top Model. A* had to make a trip out for some ice cream to ease my suffering. It helped, but just a little. I may (will) need more tonight.

And speaking of ANTM... does anyone else hate Jade as much as I do? That girl needs a serious attitude adjustment. I was so upset when she won the challange. I think she has an interesting look, but I just can't stand anything that comes out of her mouth!! Let me know if anyone shares this opinion... or am I the only one who will admit to this guilty pleasure?

Anatomy

I love the internet, I really really do. It helps me pass the time when I am bored, it tells me useful tidbits of information, and most importantly it keeps me up to date on all of my important blogger friends and what they are doing. But sometimes, the internet can give you too much. There are certain times when you should avoid the "helpful" internet. I found this out the hard way, when I was surfing around looking for people that had had a breast reduction. As the surgery date looms, I get more and more nervous, so I thought that perhaps a positive experience would make me feel better. Wrong! I found a personal journal that was one woman's journey through the surgery process, from thinking of having it done all the way to about two or three months post op. I'm not going to give her name or the site, but let me just tell you that I read it thouroughly and very nearly called the doctor and told him to cancel the whole thing. This woman had nothing but bad experiences. She didn't get down to the size she wanted. Her nipples were oddly shaped. She had way more pain than she had expected. She described, in detail, the patterns of yellow and green bruises that bloomed all the way under her arms. I know that I shouldn't have, but I kept reading. I didn't finish it, because I started to get a little teary eyed, but I read enough.

I was already nervous, but the nervousness was tinged with gleeful excitement for this procedure that I have wanted to have since the first time I saw someone making the "huge boob" international hand gesture and pointing at me. Now I just feel like maybe it ISN'T the right decison, maybe I am being too hasty and I should think about it more. As if ten + years wasn't enough! Not to mention, if I hear one more well intentioned person say to me "I WISH I had those boobs, why the heck would you get rid of them? Can you save some for me (har har har)?" I want to tell those people to go down to the grocery store and purchase a couple good sized watermelons. They should weigh over ten pounds each. Now strap these watermelons to your chest, in a garment that won't cover the entire melon, but will have bulbous bits of the fruit overflowing from the thing. Walk around all day with this weight on your chest... no, walk around a couple days, just to get the full effect, and then come back and tell me that you don't know why I'm getting this done.

I know I'm just getting scared, and not being reasonable. I know this, and I know that one woman's story shouldn't be this big of a deal to me. But I keep thinking... what if I am that woman?? What if the EXACT same things happen to me that happened to her??

What if I wake up and I have a nipple on my forehead??