Reduce or Reuse?

So I’d been considering having my breasts done. Not augmented, but done. Kaput. Finito. Considerably smaller and noticeably perkier. I’d been thinking about it for a long time. Twenty years to be precise. Ever since I was thirteen and bloomed into a full grown 1950’s movie starlet overnight. Ever since I was a bridesmaid at my mother’s wedding and had to be virtually taped into my rose silk gown. Ever since I received that same year, as a gag gift in my Christmas stocking, a book entitled ‘Big Boobs is….’ ( one example; big boobs is…never needing a table for your tea cup. Ha-ha-ha). And was forced to read aloud from it’s pages for my slightly over-the-top parents. And grandparents. And cousins.
The funny thing about developing is that the right girls never get the breasts. I remember a whole gaggle of my girlfriends oohing and aahing over my new appendages, quietly despairing that they would never achieve the same cup size as myself. Considering I was already a 36C (and climbing higher) they were probably quite right to despair. I, on the other hand, loudly despaired that I would never be able to play team sports, run down the street, go braless (it took a long time for my horrified mother to convince me of that one) or wear a bikini like they could. If only I had known then that these would be the least of my problems.
The high school years were tough. I started to walk a little hunched over and wore baggy sweats (the age old trick all voluptuous girls know and love) but I wasn’t fooling anyone. Crude - and rather unimaginative - nicknames surfaced, and I was either being ridiculed for my curves or sought after. I’m not quite sure which was more humiliating. I once had a man tell me scornfully that he didn’t like ‘girls with big boobs’. As though that was all I was allowed. The only person I could possibly be. Naturally I came back with a clever rejoinder (“Well that’s a shame because I grew them just for you.”) but it was demeaning. And dehumanizing.
And then there were the other men. The ones who watched my breasts as though they may start doing tricks or pull themselves free of my body somehow. A certain level of intentional sexuality is apparently attached to being well-endowed, and not just by men. Women feel the need on a daily basis to inform me of my large breasts as though it were something I hadn’t noticed, like mustard on my upper lip. These are often the same women who inch closer to their husbands in my presence in fear I may use my powers for evil instead of good.
Well finally this year, weary and frustrated, off I headed to the plastic surgeon. As I sat waiting for him in his office, topless and exposed on the cool sterilized plastic, I wondered what exactly I was expecting. After all, once I had perfect breasts wouldn’t it follow that I would need the perfect body to go with them? I pictured these lovely breasts atop my soft, pillowy body. How would that work? The surgeon came in and began to manoeuvre my breasts to and fro without so much as a ‘how do you do?’. He nodded to himself a few times, saying ‘yes’ and ‘I see’ to my nipples. Then he proceeded to tell me that, in essence, I was malformed enough to have my breast reduction covered by my health plan. We talked for awhile about the surgery, about the scars that would sear across my flesh for eternity and about the month long recovery. He never once asked me if I was sure that I wanted this done. We didn’t bother getting into the psychology of it all. I thanked him politely, left the office with my mountain of paper work and never returned.
It’s strange, but the finality of it all made me see clearly. They were wrong. All of them. I wasn’t malformed, I was me. I’m not defined by my breasts, nor am I encumbered by them. The plain, solid truth was that I was giving up. Worn down by the prejudice and unwanted attention. Sure, they may be larger than what is normal, but since when had I cared about normal? I had nursed my babies with these breasts and for all their saggy, stretch-marked imperfection they were mine. Perfectly. And I’m not changing them for anybody. So there.