Breasts. We all have them. What’s that? I’m getting word that we do not all have them. What’s that about? We should all have them. They are so fun.
But they’re not always fun. Sometimes they’re just like, “Emma, we hate you a lot and we’re going to make you suffer because of it.”
And I’m like, “Hey Milton, Eustace, maybe let’s calm down and talk about this!” I’ve named them Milton and Eustace.
And they’re like, “We’re a body part and we can’t talk. Also why would you name us? You wouldn’t name your neck!”
And then I’m like, “Don’t talk about Clarice like that!”
And then I take off my astronomically expensive bra and put some aloe on the grooves it wears into my shoulders and go to sleep (but not on my stomach or my back! Thanks guys!).
In one month I am sending a team of assassins to kill Milton and Eustace. In one month I am getting a breast reduction. I got really lucky and found some surgeons who moonlight as assassins. Thanks Craigslist!
Milton and Eustace have been around as long as I can remember (oh god, I can only remember the past ten years of my life?). I got my first real bra at Victoria’s Secret the summer before sixth grade. It was a B cup. Blue, with an inexplicable little lightning bolt on the left side. It soon became obsolete. Then I sized out of Victoria’s Secret. (The secret is sizeism!)
So I ventured to the department store lingerie section where your great aunt buys pantyhose. Roughly every six months, I would have to get re-fitted because Milton and Eustace grew so fast. (They’re precocious, you could say.) Each time I would take off my shirt and let a stranger wrap a tape measure around me, she would say, “Oh honey, me too. But you’re so young.” Then she would help me shove Milton and Eustace into varying sizes of strange cloth domes. Big bras come in roughly three colors: beige, dark beige, or some insane purple polka dotted mess.
Catherine wears my bra as a helmet, circa 8th grade
I tried fight back. I lost some weight, hoping Milton and Eustace would get the message and head for the hills. My pants got smaller, my back got smaller, Milton and Eustace did not.
I was once a swimmer, which was often difficult (Milton and Eustace make me less than hydrodynamic). My first swim teacher, Ms. Peggy, had dolphins tattooed on her thigh. If you weren’t doing the stroke correctly, she would grab you by your ankle and pull you back to her until you did it right. She made a lot of kids cry. I loved her. After that, everything I owned smelled like chlorine for about ten years. Until 11th grade, when I quit swim team because I was embarrassed to be spilling out of the largest size team suit they offered. And I was sick of morning practice. But mostly the other thing.
Helmet bra
I got approved for the surgery in August. First thought: excited. Then: afraid. Settled at: ready.
Reasons to be excited: less back pain! More fitting into normal shirts! Fewer stares! The ability to stand for more than two hours without being in pain! More bathing suits! Less shoulder pain! No more getting stabbed by underwire because I don’t want to buy a new bra so it breaks when I’m at my most vulnerable! Less embarrassment! Sleeping on my stomach! Cheaper bras! Less neck pain! The ability to run and go down stairs quickly! No more weird eternal sub-boob rash! More wearing dresses! Less trying to hide what is arguably the most central part of my body!
Reasons to be afraid: when I wake up wrapped in white gauze and look down at the blood and the stitches, how long will it take for me to feel like the body I’m in is my own?
Milton and Eustace are assholes. But they’re also my buds. And they had a good run.
Emma "the wren" Wren 