Pregnancy Boobs

Dear family, you might not want to read this, it’s about my boobs. BOOBS.
On the night before my 13th birthday, my mom and I were out shopping for party supplies at WalMart. I stopped in front of the clothing aisle and examined some of the dresses.

“Oh honey,” my mom said. “You need to have more support to pull that dress off.”

I blushed. She was talking about how I had no boobs again! At 13, I had no reason other than peer pressure to wear a bra and I still hadn’t had my period. Meanwhile, my younger sisters were already filling out the clothes they stole from me.

My mom continued, “You know, when I was younger we used to sing a little song to help us get more boobs.” Then she threw back her head and sang this song, in the middle of a WalMart at 9pm.
Grow little boobies, bigger, bigger!
I have an underdeveloped figure.
Everything on me is added.
All my underwear is padded.
I want a figure like Marilyn Monroe.
So, grow little boobies, GROW! GROW!

Oddly enough, at a WalMart at 9pm. She fit in.

I have four sisters and despite the fact that I am older than three of them, they all look older. In fact, when I went to visit my parents, right after I got engaged, my mom’s friends were constantly coming up to my sister Becky (still in high school at the time) and congratulating her on her marriage. When we corrected them, they took one look at me and assumed one thing: Shotgun wedding.

My sisters are lovely, curly-haired, full-figured goddesses. When I go outside, people wonder why that 10-year-old boy is dressed in drag. My flat-chestedness has defined me as a woman. I don’t try on shirts at the store. I’ve been known to wear two shirts instead of one bra TO. WORK. I run in public. Heck, I run for fun. My arm motions are wide and unencumbered. No man has ever not looked into my eyes when he was talking to me.

Until now.

I was warned that my boobs would get bigger. But I wasn’t warned about the lifestyle change. About how everything from the way I slept at night, sat in a chair and walked across a parking lot would change. My center of gravity has changed. I went running once and was all OMG this is what chaffing is!? and when I tried to dance at a friend’s wedding, I was knocked off balance by these things that are so foreign and yet so attached. The guy at the grocery store hit on me. And people don’t assume I’m a 12-year-old. Now, I’m at least a voluptuous 19.

And I try to explain to people what lifestyle change this is. That when you don’t have boobs that you completely miss out on the drama of bra fittings, why strapless dresses are so controversial and the back aches. You miss out on a culture. A LIFESTYLE. And I’m sorry, but I don’t enjoy it one bit.

But for now, I’m going to do some very inappropriate shimmying.