From the moment my favorite aunt clasped my tender, pubescent hands in her own, outstretched my arms and excitedly proclaimed, “My Goodness! Look how you’ve filled out!” I have been in the throes of a tormented relationship with my breasts. I was twelve, standing amidst the fervor of family-reunion chatter and reminiscence. But suddenly the room fell quiet with disinterest in how long-lost Cousin Ronnie from Florida was acclimating to New England weather and one hundred infrared eyes honed in on my petrified, though evidently busty, figure; they had tuned into one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Although my face had become hot as the sun, so much so that I thought my hair would burst into flames, I uttered, as my dear aunt would expect, the requisite, “Thank you.” It must have been barely audible through the tears forcing their way from my sickened stomach right up to my throat, stopping just short of seeping out of my stunned eyes. Until that instant in time, I had never imagined such innocuous members of my anatomy could be the cause of a lifetime of angst.
Having been awkwardly endowed during my pre-teen years with the chest of a full-grown woman, I quickly learned the difference between envy and ridicule, and how the two when blended precisely together could form the most crippling insult. I, in a state of misguided bliss, had not realized that big breasts despite otherwise average proportions meant that one was, in fact, morbidly obese. Thankfully several helpful, flat-chested classmates had repeatedly pointed this fact out to me on the playground so that I could immediately assume my lower position in the schoolyard hierarchy. They were even nice enough to set the exact degree of my zaftig form to a lovely singsong rhyme so I would not forget.
Another very important fact of which I was made aware was that my large chest was indisputably indicative of promiscuity. I had had no idea there was a direct correlation between my breast size and the number of boys with whom I was having sex. They translated that bit of scientific evidence into a song for me also; those children were really quite thoughtful. Although slightly off the mark to the vulgar end, they just may have touched upon some level of truth. Of all the things I was unaware of regarding my breasts, I did happen to notice that while all the girls were cutting me down, there were a proportionate number of boys chatting me up, and that had its advantages.
I suddenly realized that for every nickname those cumbersome protrusions inspired they had an equally persuasive function. Sharpening my own pencil became a thing of the past. I always had a good seat in the cafeteria, and thunderous applause resonated throughout the gymnasium during physical education class – especially when hurdles and trampolines were involved. I was actually starting to enjoy having giant breasts. Then without warning my C-cup was pulled right out from under me. I had had a growth spurt. I had shot up like a weed in mere months. My breasts, however, wanted no part of any such thing. Acting not unlike the humps on a wandering desert camel sustaining the unfortunate beast of burden with their vital fluids, my breasts shrank with each inch of height I gained. Strangely enough, just as my chest was shriveling into oblivion, what had been little more than delicate buds on the bodies of my less-ample, and musically inclined peers began to blossom into a veritable springtime of feminine curves. Nature, it would seem, was not without a sense of irony.
For the next several years to follow, I paid little mind to my newly mediocre breasts regarding them as little more than the occasional recreational devices that required costly, special equipment – with under-wire. In the dawn of my twenties, those relatively neglected, and markedly less firm, temples of womanhood moved once more into the foreground. I discovered I was pregnant with my first child. Over the course of the next nine months I watched in helpless amazement as they grew out of control, much like the supernatural expansion I had observed as a young girl. But just as I was certain my breasts were bent on world domination a new axis of power was created: lactation and the newborn. One minute I would be lugging around painful, purple bowling balls no bra could contain. Only moments later I would be neatly folding little, deflated balloons back into their packages.
Inspired by this daily ebb and flow, I came to realize my breasts were like a pair of magnates. An unseen and immeasurably powerful energy exists between the two poles of engorged and emptied breast. In that field resides the nurturing of a child. Born of that epiphany was a whole new love for my breasts. I came to appreciate them, standing in awe of their importance. Through them poured the vital nectar that nourished and grew my beautiful little boy. Without them my son would either starve or be subjected to a sub par milkshake of manufactured nutrients and cow discharge. So with that sentiment, coupled with the daily elation I experienced while nursing my baby, I endured the continuous expand/contract phenomenon for twelve solid months during which time I had also had the opportunity to acquaint myself with a whole new article of special (and quite expensive) equipment that my increasingly needy breasts required – the breast pump.
Motherhood had not only transformed my breasts from fun to functional but it had expanded my list of accessories necessary to perform all of my daily womanly duties. I had gone from a top drawer brimming with the frilly, scallop-edged, under-wire secrets of a very wealthy English woman to a kitchen counter overtaken by medical grade polyurethane tubes and breast-shaped funnels. With the hope that as soon as I no longer needed the latter I would be able to utilize the prior, I managed to keep my chin up despite the fact that my breasts were sagging further down. But soon enough my eager fingers had reason to sift through that top drawer of dainties and my breasts had once again resumed their place in the deep recesses of my mind, save the very rare occasion when my son would sleep long enough to allow for some grown-up time.
However, their furlough from the business of lactation ended twelve months later with the birth of my second child, a gorgeous baby girl. The following six months of breastfeeding felt like old hat until what had been a drooling mouth full of bumpy gums had, overnight it seemed, become a voracious cavity of knobby little puppy teeth eager to gnaw on anything unfortunate enough to pass within striking distance. My nipples had become hapless prey – at least five times a day, and my breasts had gained yet another function … chew toy. And though much wincing did ensue and I had gone through several tubes of lanolin nipple ointment, my daughter I made it through that crucial year of nurturing and bonding. Our breastfeeding journey together concluded when that lovely cherub, while at the breast, looked up at me adoringly with those big, blue eyes, clamped her vice-like teeth onto my unsuspecting nipple, flashed a pearly white smile obscured only by a mouthful of my flesh, giggled, released, then rolled off of my lap onto the floor and crawled nonchalantly away to the toy box. She never asked to nurse again.
Knowing that my second child, my daughter, would indeed be my last, there was a time of mourning for my breasts and I. It felt as if they would never again nurture or nourish. All signs of functionality had been replaced by silver hued stretch marks and slightly elongated nipples which always pointed due south, like confused compasses. No more would they expand and contract with regularity. I no longer needed to select my underwear in accordance with my child’s appetite. There remained no traces of feminine nobility, only a raisin like texture and a new daily routine of extra push-up padding and Shea butter creams. The perfectly pert and fluffy throw-pillows of my youth had been replaced with the floppy old goose down kind you tuck under the quilt of a neatly made bed, the kind of pillow just worn and soft enough for a child to hide beneath during a midnight thunderstorm…
So many things have my breasts been in my short life thus far. They’ve been a childhood call to taunt, a manipulative tool, a display case for lovely underwear, and the soup kitchen of a future generation. But today, rather than a thing, they have become a place: a soothing haven for the teary-eyed faces of children with scraped knees and hurt feelings, and a quiet cradle for the weary head of a friend in need. My heart no longer weeps for the toll time has taken on my body, but instead it cries with every soul I comfort against my breasts.
All work in Lacuna