Flashback Friday: The Bra Incident

My very first flight to Australia when I was 17 years old, took a staggering 25 hours.  Yeah, 25 hours to get to Australia.  That’s what happens when you fly Canada 3000 from Vancouver to Sydney via Honolulu, Rarotonga, and Auckland.  But hey, I was paying for it myself, and it only cost me $600 return, so I didn’t really care.

My host family picked me up from the airport and when I got to their house, I had just enough time to shower away 25 hours worth of sweat and unpleasantness from so much travel before the party started.  They had another exchange student leaving the very next day and she was having a going away party.  She was in the room I’d be in, so I had the den/study for the night, which happened to be downstairs right near the kitchen and living room- the party area.

I made the rounds, meeting everyone, declaring my sobriety and making a bet with someone for $50 that I wouldn’t drink the entire time I was in Australia.  Ha!  That didn’t happen!

I must have needed to get something from my temporary room because I went in there for some reason or another.

My host brother Dean must have wanted something out of there too.  It was the study after all.

As I walked in, his face went bright red.  Someone else was in there too.  I can’t remember who 10.5 years later, but there was someone else there.  He looked guilty, but I wasn’t sure why (Maybe because I’d been flying for 25 hours was in a new time zone, and was pretty much a zombie by that stage).

Yeah, I had permed burgandy hair, so what?

I gave them a funny look and they quickly scrambled out of there.

I didn’t get boobs until I was 18 years old.  Yeah, 18.  When I was 17, I was 98 pounds, still flat chested and could buy bras in the tween section.  Doesn’t sound very exciting, but tween bras are awesome!  They are sparkly.  They are funky.  I’m pretty sure they have the awesomeness to make you feel better about having absolutely no boobs. They make you feel a little bit better about it.

One of my awesome sparkly funky tween bras was sitting at the top of my luggage.  Hmmm…Maybe my host brother and friend saw it and then got embarrassed when I came in?  I didn’t say anything.  My bras were awesome, I didn’t care who saw them!

It wasn’t until later that my host brother told me that he had actually picked up the awesome sparkly bra, held it up, and showed it to his friend.  I apparently walked in on it, but was too oblivious to notice him quickly dropping my bra back into the suitcase.  He thought I had seen him with the bra.

I wish adult I-actually-have-boobs-now bras were as awesome as tween bras.  I miss the tween bras.  Humph. But I do like having boobs….

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Dear Boobies: I miss you, please come back

“GO Crater!!!!!” my friends yelled from the grandstands.  I’m sure the judges thought they were nuts.  I tuned them out and kept jumping (well, my pony did the actual jumping).  I can’t remember how long I had that nickname, but it was a long time.  It didn’t really bother me, I thought it was funny.  After all, it was true.  Well, ok, I didn’t have craters instead of boobs.  I just didn’t have any boobs.

My friend gave me an “Itty Bitty Titty Club” card once.  I still remember the silly poem on the back:

Itty Bitty soft and pretty, little breasts make better chests.  I carried that little card around in my wallet for years.

But then I came to Australia.  I don’t know if there are steroids or growth hormones or something in the chicken here, but suddenly, I had boobs.  I left an A, came back a C.  Sure, I’d put on a bit of weight while here.  I suppose that’s what happens when you were so fussy that you lived off of cheese pizza, macaroni and cheese and turkey hot dogs. Then you pull the stick of out your bum and start trying new things and realise hey, it’s not too bad.  Plus, this country has Tim Tams.  And cheesy nuggets, and my host mum Linda’s chef class cooking.  I lost my Australia pudge, but lucky for me, my boobs stayed.  I still remember my very first C-cup bra.  White with polka dots and convertible straps.

When I got pregnant, my boobs got even bigger.  Or maybe they just got sore, I don’t know.  They definitely got even bigger when I started breastfeeding.  Especially if Hannah didn’t wake overnight and I woke up in a puddle of milk and they were rock hard.

But now, breastfeeding is over, I’m not pregnant, and the chicken just doesn’t seem to be doing it’s job.  I suppose I thought they’d just go back to their pre-pregnancy size.  That seemed logical.  But no, that was not to be.  Instead, when I wear my bra, no longer is it filled by my boobies.  Now, fabric hangs down below my boobs, with nothing to hold it up, nothing to keep it in place.  I move my arm and my bra pretty much goes up to my neck.  I hunch a little bit and the straps fall down to my elbows.

“What’s going on, your bra is way too big for you?”  Aaron said to me the other day.  That was the straw that broke the camels back.  I was kind of hoping my MIA boobies would suddenly run back to me, happy and excited from their vacation, ecstatic about being reunited with me.

“My boobies shrank,” I said with a sad look on my face.

“Why don’t you get some new bras?”  Hm…good idea.

So that’s what I did today.  I went bra shopping.  I didn’t trust myself to figure out my new, smaller, sadder size.  I went to Bras ‘n things and got fitted.  I am now (sigh, gasp, sad face) an 8B.  Or (because that is nearly impossible to find) I could also go for the 10A.  Ten A?????????!!!!!!!!!!??????  I thought maybe a 10B, only 1 size smaller, that wouldn’t be so bad, but TWO SIZES SMALLER??!  What happens when I have another baby?  Will I turn into an 8AAA?  And then what if I have 2 more babies, or twins?  Then I really will be Crater.

I didn’t mind not having boobs.  But then I got some, and I really liked them.  And now I would really like them back.  They didn’t even stick around for 10 years.  😦

Oh, and I tried on a 10A in the store, and it pains me to say this, but it was a little big. Not around, but in the cup.  That’s just sad.  At least an 8B sounds better (we’ll just pretend the the actual cup size isn’t actually smaller than a 10A.  I know, bra sizes are confusing.).  Before today, I didn’t even know they made size 8 bras.  Sigh….