Friday, January 18, 2013

Welcome January (I think)

Welcome to January folks! Reposting this piece as the new year brings awareness to how much I need to get a grip on the unmentionables...yikes!

A good bra can fix anything

I don't care what it is, any problem, no matter how monstrous or trivial, life altering or mundane, can be solved with just one thing; a good bra.  Think about it- world peace, in-law troubles; you name it- all can be taken care of by the simple action of finding that splendid unmentionable and connecting it's maddening hook clasp between our shoulder blades.  A good bra makes us stand a little taller, smile a little brighter, shine that little speck more.  We all know what happens to our morale when we put on a saggy, misshapen, dingy-drab from so many washings it looks like it was grey in the first place- bra.  We feel like that.  We feel the blah, we feel the misshape.  We greet each new set of eyes with an Emily Dickinson-like stare, please don't really see me, I'll be the wallflower in the corner, thank you.

We can't blame ourselves for this, it truly is not our faults.  When we are teenagers and our boobies appear we think they, like the mole on our arm will forever be with us just as they are in that moment.  We take them for granted.  We walk around letting them fly free.  We do not care!  We are 13, 18, 26, 30!  We should be getting the forklift ready for their descent but we don't.  No, we just ignore and look away, we pretend not to see them melting like the polar ice caps.  We get pregnant.  We get forty.  We breastfeed.  We run that 5k with that terrible shot elastic in our sports bra.  And then BAM!  One day, they don't greet the sun quite like they used to.  Or they deflate like a balloon popped by a horrific child.  We look around, we want to yell "WHO IS THAT KID ANYWAY??!!"
We want to blame somebody. What do you do when there is no one really to blame?

You stop blaming.  Like the stages of grief you finish your bargaining, anger, and pleading and you hit your own version of acceptance.  You stop buying your bra's at Wallmart and your march yourself into Victoria's Secret.  You ignore the 16 year old asking "Ma 'am, can I help you?" and you keep walking because homicide is not on the calender for the day.  You tell the most mature salesperson you can find (21 year old girl) that you need something that will help you with the breasts that have betrayed you.  You tell her you want to take the fat from your ass and inject it into your breasts but that you will not do that because:
1) You can't afford it
2) How would you justify it to your daughters that you convince yourself are looking up to you??
Once you have explained all of this to the 21 year old who is texting security you take a deep breath, lift your shirt and say- "can you, for the love of God, help with this please??" "

I have been told that there is a panic button for this kind of moment at Victoria's Secret.  A hush falls over the store, walkie talkies are involved.  You find yourself escorted into a special back room with not a florescent light in sight.  You are placed in a vault-like dressing room where bra's are slipped to you through a secret compartment in the door; gingerly handed to you like little sticks of dynamite.   Tentatively, with jaundice and malice you try the bra on.  Like a golden arch of sunlight piercing the dressing room door, a miracle occurs- you look in the mirror and Voila!  What has forsaken you has been restored, the prodigal son has returned!

You wear it out-you have no concern for the way clothes are made with formaldehyde these days- you can't be bothered with such trivial details!   The world has changed!  Hell--oooo!   You go to the counter.  You don't check the price- you don't care- you would mortgage your home for this bra!  You walk out of the store with it on under your shirt and close to your heart; your heartbeat and bra are one!  You let people pull out in front of you in traffic!  You laugh at your Mother in-law's comments about how she had it harder than you!  You saunter into your children's school at pick up time and wipe off any trace of Emily Dickinson!  You and your new bra look them all in the eye with the fearlessness of an outlaw at high noon; you don't look away!  You start that letter to the United Nations and it begins with "listen up 'cause this is how it's gonna get done!"  Yes, things are going to be different now folks.  Look out, nothing is ever going to be the same again.  A good bra can fix anything.