The Flopsy and Mopsy Chronicles

My Mom took me to Sears to get my first training bra.  I was so excited.  It was white and rather industrial, except for some small fabric flowers in the center between the cups.  I was proud of it and that I had something to put in it.

By the time I got to Jr. High, or what they now call Middle School, I was already stacked.  Having ample breasts at that age was brutal; I did everything I could to downplay them, and continued do so well into my forties.  I was shocked and embarrassed the first time an adolescent boy pointed towards one of my girls and said "Is that something on your sweater?"  As I looked down to see what was there, he said "Right there" and gave my breast a sharp poke with his index finger and laughed mockingly.  I was so hurt and ashamed.

It only happened once.  There were a few times that school year I slapped some hands away who really were trying to tell me something was on my sweater and would not ever have poked.

I remember early in high school, the first time being felt up, having my bra hooks undone by someone other than myself, feeling excited and afraid in his room.  When he saw my girls and touched them, he cried, and I felt so moved and yet, POWERFUL.

It was not until college I bought my first lingerie, having always been modest and covered up, it was exciting to see myself look SEXY.

When I was pregnant, my feelings about my girls changed from identifying them as sensual to some kind of mother holy.  Breastfeeding is not easy to learn, it requires a fair amount of patience, and a considerable amount of pain in the beginning.  I don't think I ever felt more complete in my life, having one of those baby boys cooing and gurgling away on my nipple, a little hand resting gently on me.  Something primitive and instinctual came on strong; I felt completely satisfied.  During pregnancy and while nursing was the most beautiful I ever felt, one of the few times in a lifetime of zaftig I embraced my voluptuous curves and jiggles.

Breasts made me feel sexy and grown-up, other times motherly and pure.

Flopsy and Mopsy have been a large part of identifying myself as a girl, and a woman.

Without hair and buxom bosom, it feels as if I will walk through the world in a way foreign to me, more human than woman.

I think every woman understands the ways we rely on them to say something about us, and enchant those we hope to enchant.

Enchantment is based on illusion, and men are visual creatures.  You do the math baby.

As women, we use all kinds of illusions to enhance and hide our truest selves.  Our hair, our clothes, our makeup, our body shape and weight.

Are we afraid without these, who would love us?  Desire us?

We've been trained we are not deserving of love and adoration without them.

I know the first time I look at myself, breastless, will be a blow.  I'm not ashamed of that or need to make apologies.  Flopsy and Mopsy have been very important to me.  I grieve   losing them.  I will not grieve cutting out the vessels of my cancer.

I realize there is a me that is me, that my body has no claim to.

It speaks to you in this blog.

Bodyless it weaves words into poetry, and strings notes into melodies, revealing its truest self.

I know there is nothing I will lose on Tuesday that will diminish this writer girl that dreams.

It's just I will miss them.

Flopsy and Mopsy.

Mine.