Saturday, January 3, 2015

To Boobs and Back Again: A Story on Personal Growth




 
Email exchange with the editor of Coastal Illustrated:


“Hey Bob!  Hope this finds you well and somewhat warm.  I can’t feel my left pinkie toe but what the hay…because you will be happy to know it’s my birthday next Tuesday!  You may or may not be excited about my birthday (have one every year, so nothing new) or particularly concerned about my toe (seeing as it will eventually thaw and does anyone really need a pinkie toe anyway) but more specifically because I fly out early, early Wednesday AM to Costa Rica which means …drum roll please… I will get my article to you by Monday (writers note: early for me never, ever happens).  Oh, and can I write about boobs?  In a tasteful way, of course :)  As if, there is any other way, right? La”

“I’m sure it will be tasteful.  Be careful sending pictures though.  Happy Birthday, La.  Your toe should thaw in Costa Rica.”

                That’s why Bob makes the big bucks; he’s totally right.  About the pictures.  Oh, and curse words but that’s another story.

                But for me, what’s important here isn’t the vaca, the weather or the word that begins with “b”, rhymes with tubes and makes grown men giggle.  It’s my annual “woe is me”, “oh holy, crap”, I’m getting another year older so I’ll keep waxing philosophical while getting up every hour on the hour to pee column.

                It seems my birthday always coincides with the first of the year- or rather… the symbolic start of new beginnings, fresh (not stale) do-over s and over-the-top promises, props and pathways to all sorts of untapped potential.   So you’ll have to just bear with me.

                Almost ten years ago, at 32, I was in the same, questioning place.  Only ten times more woeful.

                The difference was I had just had my second baby.  Gosh, she was gorgeous.  She had freckles like fairy dust, baby blues as crisp as a fresh fall sky and dimples as deep as a canyon.  I WAS IN LOVE. 

                But the awful, scary truth was I absolutely could not, no matter how hard or how fiercely I tried breastfeed that precious baby.

                And let me tell you I tried everything.  But nothing worked.

                What did happen was I developed a really bad infection in my left mammary gland that would burn so bad I could feel it shoot through my chest, all around my brain and straight down my back all the while I was nursing. 

                 I would weep, y’all.  Seriously.  Three weeks in and they would bring my happy, pudgy, everyone sneaking her formula-fed baby into to see me, and I’d crumple in a big, bad puddle of failure.  It got to be so I would cry at the sight of that gorgeous baby-not because I didn’t love her- but because I Was THE WORST MOTHER EVER.   I was depriving her of something she so desperately needed.

                “Breast is best.”

“Breast is best.”

Even though my pediatrician kept telling me she will still go to college without all that colostrum.  I still figured I screwed it all up.

Finally, I friend sat me down and gave me a talking to.

“Look, if you’re going to cry every time you see her because it hurts so much just to feed her then get over yourself already and enjoy your baby.  Here’s the bottle.  You’re welcome. Plus, Publix is slap out of cabbage leaves and were defrosting your freezer.”

Flash forward two years later.

The baby is healthy and happy, but mom is not.  She-I-can’t get over how much everything has changed.  It’s not just the sleepless nights and the spit up; the soiled sheets and the contaminated diaper genies.  It’s the fact and very real truth that slaps me the face every day when I get out of the one minute shower with my other toddler strap to my knee.  My boobs- that were nothing to brag about to begin with- were now sliding their merry way down to the equator near the Galapagos Islands looking to board Charles Darwin’s ship.   

Y’all.  I had never seen anything like it.  And in my post-partum, unequally sized shaped, dimpled and destroyed girls seemed to be telling me:

“Breast is best.”

“Breast is best.”

So I went in.

I can’t say getting implants was the worst decision I ever made almost eight years ago.  After all, I have sadly but happily been making many, many mistakes ever since.

I guess I just put a value on my body and my role in my life that said- “wait… not so fast.  I don’t’ want to get older, look older, not quite yet.”

See, in my 30’s, I felt that if I looked good, I’d feel good.

In my 30’s, if I wanted people to like me, I had to present “me” in a certain neat, pretty-packaged, likable way.

Now, in my 40’s, I really don’t give a damn. (Sorry, Bob.)

Turns out growing older is a pretty good gig after all. As long as you get it.

I removed my implants this past summer.  I can tell you it was one of the wiser decisions I have ever made.  I feel lighter…….. in so many ways.

Though my boobs still do point straight down South to the equator.  But who cares…I’m heading there now as we speak.

Are breasts really best?

Nah’.  Life is.

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