Will I Be Pretty? Part 1

I saw my life change before my eyes. It all flashed by like flickering images on a busy street. I was growing up. My body was changing from a child's to a woman's. And out of no where, Mother Nature sneaks up and slaps me in the face. My baby fat seemed to melt off as fat started to fill in other more appealing areas.

As I turned and looked at my naked body in a mirror it was as if I could hear Mother Nature's evil cackle. It was noticeable now. I couldn't just wear a shirt anymore I needed.... a bra. A dreaded word in my child's mind, something I tried to deny would ever happen. But as I stood there pinching and pushing my swollen breast I knew it was true. Once they started to swell my breasts would not stop! I was eleven and already had an A cup, as big as my Mother was in adulthood. All I could think was, will I be pretty?

The question throbbed into my very core as I knew I couldn't hide it anymore. I couldn't cower behind the mask of childhood. They all thought I was charming, adorable....normal. And I knew I had to confront it. I had to attack the fact that I only had one breast head on. No cowering behind a corner in the shadows.

I geared myself for the worse and all I would think was "That Bitch!" Of course I didn't know how to cuss at the time but if I did that's what I would be thinking!

My mother spent a few days making phone calls. Like me, she was trying to deny the fact that one day her daughter would need a solution to her "condition". Perhaps she thought it would come later in my life; perhaps she was trying to deny it as much as I was. But whatever the reason she scrambled to find a solution, even if it was temporary, in her mind at least.

The calls had been made, a solution found.

As my mother held my hand she towed me into a store that was unlike any I had ever seen. On the walls heads with make up on them displayed an array of colored wigs in every hair style imaginable. While underwear filled every inch of the store. But this wasn't the cute underwear that I saw my sisters wearing, this was stranger.

My mother and I were greeted by a sales clerk. Asking my Mother what she could help her with. My mother smiled and quietly explained the real reason we were there. I saw the sales lady turn her head in my direction. She made eye contact with me for only a few fleeting seconds, but the look she had hidden behind her smile was, a mixture of sympathy, fear, sadness and distaste . I could tell she had never had a client like myself. She was used to dealing with women who had lost their breast through surgery. Not an ugly duckling girl who had never possessed two.

I spent the next few hours of my life having this woman dress and undress me like her own personal doll. Trying on fifteen different types of bras and ten different types of breast forms. My bust line was touched, prodded and measured; all the while I felt like I was being sized up and conformed to the ideal of which society measures them all.

I left the store with an elastic pair of material stretched around my midsection and a sticky feeling breast form that some times collapsed into my chest.

All the while wondering. Will this make me pretty? Will this make me normal? Will this make me better or thinner?

Then coming to a realization much wiser then my age. I discovered that all of those things would only come from within, I was in control. And not even the most magical bra in the world could make all of my imaginary shortcomings disappear.

This new information changed my thinking. And as I was faced with an even more challenging decision in the near future. This realization helped me make the right choice for me.

And apparently I'm not the only one. This woman says it just how I feel. We shouldn't just be defined by a little five letter word.

Until next time...

You're Perfect just the way you are,
No one's as Special as you.