Self Love At Any (Bra) Size
Words by Genny Rietze
My middle school crush’s screenname on MSN Messenger was BigKahunas. Mine was DreamGen1. We were that cool.
Every night I’d sit on my family’s computer at the bottom of the stairs and wait for him to get online so we could talk about swim practice or music.
My crush burned me Smash Mouth CDs and introduced me to The Strokes. At night I wrote poems about him in a spiral-bound notebook on my bed while swinging my feet to the Enrique Iglesias song, Hero.
At school, I passed him on the linoleum stairs after band practice, me carrying my clunky saxophone case, him talking with friends. Every day he said, “Hi,” and every day I nearly fainted. One day, one of his friends turned to him and asked, “Is that your little girlfriend?” I wrote about it in my diary. One day, I thought, maybe it’ll be true.
Then Tara moved to town.
Tara was a year older and blonde and from somewhere else. Among other things Tara had that I did not, I noticed Tara had boobs. I looked down at my childish body and felt small.
One day my crush said “Hi” to Tara on the school steps instead of me. I knew in my soul it was because I didn’t measure up. Maybe it wasn’t true, but I cried anyway.
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Around the same time, my best friend got her first bra. I wanted one too but I didn’t need one. My body had always climbed trees and danced wildly to the Beach Boys. My body had always been enough, till now.
At school dances, boys asked my friend to slow dance while I sat stranded with the snacks. I looked around at my classmates thinking, if I had boobs like the rest of the girls, I’d have attention. If I had boobs, maybe my crush would still talk to me.
I looked around my life. A woman I loved had breast implants; she looked perfect to me. Now 16 years old and persistently flat-chested, I announced to my mom that I’d be getting implants one day too.
She sighed and said, "But you're so beautiful and confident. Please, no. You don’t need them."
As we do, I ignored my mother’s advice and scheduled surgery right for my last week of college, giving my natural genetics the metaphorical finger. I paid for the surgery with my college fund; I’d earned a scholarship for swimming so the money was mine. I cashed out in silicone. My parents disapproved but honored my choice. They gave me the freedom to learn my own lesson, painful as it was.
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Post-surgery in a hardwood-floored exam room in downtown Chicago, I unwrapped rolls of bandage from my aching chest and couldn’t recognize the woman in the curved glass mirror. I felt and looked like a fake.
"They'll settle," the surgeon told me, seeing my blank stare at my too-perfect breasts. They did, after a while. But I couldn’t.
Surgery couldn’t erase that feeling of not being enough I’d had since Tara stole my middle school crush. I could feel people’s eyes on my chest in the grocery store. I couldn’t wear my small bikinis or strappy dresses anymore because they felt too inappropriate. I felt like everyone could see I’d spent a lot of money on something stupid, so I started wearing grey sweatshirts to blend into the clouds of shame that followed me everywhere.
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Ten years later, I whisper to my husband under the cover of darkness and flannel sheets as the wind blows over us through the open window, “Would you have fallen in love with me if it weren’t for my boobs?”
I hold my breath in the darkness. I’ve never asked him before because I’ve always thought my body was part of the reason he asked me out. In our years together, I’d never asked.
He rolls over and puts an arm over my back, pressing his warm body into mine.
“Of course I would’ve. I’m not a boob guy.”
I laugh out loud. “Not a boob guy?”
“You’re just hot.”
I want to respond, You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I’ve never felt ‘hot’. I’ve felt inadequate and unworthy. But at that moment I realized he doesn’t see my recovering postpartum body or imperfections or stupid breast implants. When he says, “You’re hot”, he means, I love you, all of you.
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In the fading afternoon light, I kiss the bottoms of my daughter’s feet on the bed, tickling her soft baby legs as she giggles and kicks. I love her milky smell. I love her velvet skin against my cheek. I could eat her tiny ears and nose for a hundred years and not get enough.
I bend close to her and whisper, “You’re perfect, now and always.” She doesn’t understand but what I say won’t matter anyway. What I tell myself in front of my daughter matters most.
Daughter, I promise to love my body so you can love yours.
I promise to honor myself and you with the same awe and delight I felt when you snuck into the world in the deepest part of a July night.
As a gift to her and to remind myself I still exist as a woman beyond dishwasher empty-er and laundry folder, I decorate a silk ballgown for our state fair’s Wearable Art Show. After bedtime and during naps, I choreograph a two-minute dance routine. At first I ask my best friend, the one who got all the dances in middle school, if she’ll model for me. She’s always been beautiful and confident in an actress-y way. At the last minute, I ask her if I can change my mind and model instead.
She says, “You absolutely must.”
On the day of the show, standing on wood chips in my bare feet because I couldn’t decide what shoes to wear, I scan the crowd of 200 faces on wooden benches and standing beside the outdoor pavilion. Everyone’s eating cotton candy or popcorn and laughing, waiting to watch the show. My chest feels tight and the dress feels like a hundred-pound corset. I try to walk through my choreography in my head and it flits away like a puff of smoke. Will my body remember what to do?
My sister walks up to the line of performers to wish me luck and I breathe, “Do you have any sugar with you?”
She said, “Like raisins? Or fruit snacks?”
She sets down her toddler to fish in her backpack for something sweet. I eat her fruit snacks and drink the water my friend offers, like some sort of panicked long-distance athlete. I’m dizzy.
As the announcer reads my name I have a brief clear thought: I can run or I can dance. I see my daughter in my mom’s arms in the front row. My fuzzy-haired baby girl reaches for me and cries, “Mama!”
I take a deep breath. This is for you.
My dance is neither skilled nor perfect. I’m stiff and take the runway too fast. I end up at the end cramming my whole routine into the last square. But as I twirl and do my own version of the dance I practiced, I scan the crowd and meet the eyes of a friend I’ve known since middle school, then I see the mom who brought me soup when my son was born. They clap in time to the music and shout my name. As I dance back to the line of finished performers, my dress feels lighter and my heart floats above the stage. I can breathe again.
I scoop my daughter into my arms after stepping off the stage and whisper, “I did it.”
My body and my shame, past and present, won’t define me. I accept my body and use it for good so she can too. I can’t expect her to live freely unless I do, too.
I’ll go first, my love.
About the Author:
Genny Rietze lives in rural Alaska with her husband, two young kids, and a dozen chickens. She writes in the early hours of the morning, runs a community compost program by day, and eats frozen chocolate chips during bath time. She loves rainy days and coconut coffee and would rather organize the pantry than go to most social events.