Day 2: History

Way back when, I used to be a compulsive journal-keeper. In my late teens and early twenties, I carried notebooks wherever I went and wrote whenever I had nothing better to do. I filled lunch breaks with journaling. I wrote on the subway. I wrote daily, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes a dozen pages in a day.


So I'm no stranger to navel-gazing.


I stopped after I got married. This is just speculation, but I think I stopped because my marriage was so unhappy that I couldn't bear to write down the truth of my life on a day to day basis. Writing it made it real. That was what had made journaling such a pleasure in the first place; now it was a threat to my sanity.


I still wrote occasionally, but usually only when I was "in my cups." I turned my writing energy to fiction. Creating false realities when my real reality was unbearable. I once wrote the first draft of a novel in less than two months.


In the days after Katrina, I returned to writing about personal stuff. It was three years after my divorce, and honestly, writing in a blog was easier than keeping my family and friends in the loop on an individual basis. They wanted to know what was going on with me in the wake of the flood, and I wanted to vent. Win-win.


And when I left New Orleans and moved to Louisville, the crisis of living in a Post-Katrina world was over for me, so I turned to writing about my new town. I changed blogs and began a recreational hobby of writing features and editorials about the Ville.


Just this past weekend at a Derby party, a bunch of us were talking about the "lack of a need for privacy" exhibited by the younger Facebook/MySpace/blogging generation. And of course the conversation turned toward a discussion of narcissim. My friend, who knew I blogged, gave me a knowing look and I said, "I know, and that's why I don't blog the personal stuff any more."


Well, folks, welcome to me blogging the personal stuff again. A public journal. I know I could keep it private if I want, but why?

I developed early. By the time I was in jr. high, I was a C-cup. I remember distinctly being made vicious fun of when I was in 5th grade because I was the only girl who wore a bra. It was the favorite passtime of prepubescent boys to snap the straps on girls' bras in 6th and 7th grade.

I'm five feet tall and up until I turned 30 or so, I weighed less than 100 lbs. In fact, I weighed just a smidge over 90 when I met my best friend/ex-boyfriend/Roommate. I remember this because when I started to gain weight, he used to tell me how glad he was because I was "too skinny" when I met him. In 2003, I got pregnant and my doctor warned me that I was too thin to support a pregnancy, and I started stuffing myself full of food. I lost the baby, but the weight gain never stopped. I'm still a size 4 (I was a size 0 or less for most of my life).

I mention this because I have spent my entire life as the girl/woman with the "Gigunda Gazoombas" (as Ma used to call them). Top heavy. Scrawny, short little girl (for most of my life) with the huge rack. While I'm a bit more stout now, my breasts still stand out as my most dominant feature in all their 34DD/34E glory.

I inherited these puppies from my paternal grandmother who has to be a F cup plus. When I was a little girl and started to develop, she apologized for this inheritance. Told me that her breasts had always caused her problems: grooves in her shoulders from her bra straps (check!), poor posture (super check!), and back problems (not yet).

When I was in high school I had my heart broken when my male classmates did a "poll" (this was long before the internet came along and facilitated anonymous teenaged meanness). They had categories like "Ugliest girl in the class" and "Easiest girl in the class." The "ideal girl in the class" turned out to be ANOTHER girl's face on MY body. My best friend was furious at me for being so sad. She hadn't even made the poll (and tragically, and perhaps ironically she lost her life to complications of breast cancer when she was 27). But it stayed with me, the idea that my body was great as long as my face (and perhaps my mouth and my brain) were omitted from consideration.

There are so many "body issues" that surround this cancer for me. My boobs have (I feel so un-feminist admitting this) been part of what has defined me. And, to be frank, my breasts have been very active and enthusiastic participants in my sexual life as well. They have been sources of pleasure for both me and the men I've been involved with. My most recent ex, Roommate, is decidedly a "butt guy." And I've been lucky in that department as well. But the bulk of my lovers (and most men, I think) have been "boob guys."

I remember when I had my miscarriage, the tremendous feeling that my body had betrayed me. I'm not going to say that that was the worst feeling associated with that tragedy, but it was up there in the top five. My body (please pardon the maudlinness of this statement) killed my child. Thirteen weeks into my pregnancy, my body revolted against this little thing with arms and legs and a heartbeat, and it caused it to die. I've never been the same.

And now, part of that which makes me a women, that which makes me me, has decided to revolt and go bad too. These beacons of pleasure and beauty and identity have been causing me stress and worry and pain since November, and now have finally decided to go over to the Dark Side entirely.

I'm sure every woman with breast cancer feels the same way.

And on the flip side of all of this, I've always been jealous of my mother's barely-A cups. The woman opts to wear bras, but it's truly an act of habit and not necessity. Her mosquito-bite tits used to make me nuts in the summer when she could slip on a tank top and go to the grocery store but I had to strap on my bullet-vest bra just to look okay in a t-shirt. There are so many clothes I can't wear because I look totally trashy in them. Going bra-less is never an option (although I did, gloriously, during last year's Bonnaroo). I've never found a strapless bra that truly reins in the Girls. I've deleted more pictures than I can count because my cleavage so thoroughly outshines my smile.

Side note for history: Last year, I took a knitting class with a colleague during the winter. I slaved away on a cardigan sweater for months. When I finally had the pieces all knitted, I took them to the teacher to have her help me put it together and the two sides refused to meet by more than six inches. "Aw, honey," she said, tugging and pulling. "I'm so sorry, but you're never going to be able to wear this. How is it that we never took the Girls into consideration?"

That's where "the Girls" came from.