Lucky, lucky me.

I hate my boobs, hate them with the white hot intensity of a thousand burning suns. They're huge and ungainly and have caused me no end of grief, discomfort and misery. From the moment in the sixth grade when I embarrassingly realized I had them after seeing a picture taken of only my midsection when I stood up too soon in a photo booth, I wished that I could stay 10 forever. I hated the knowing, "she's growing up so fast" look adults gave me when they saw the bra lines through the back of my lavender polo shirt, I hated the snickers of the boys and the angry and resentful comments of the girls whose friendship I so desperately craved who hadn't yet had to go to JC Penney's and be humiliated by the kindly older woman in the lingerie section when she came into the dressing room and checked the fit of the industrial, 1980's, white cotton bralette. I hated the fact that when I got to high school, boys would stare overtly at my chest and comment on the size of my bra in front of their girlfriends. I was awkward and anxious and despised being the center of that kind of attention. I ached to be slim and boyish and be able to wear tank tops in the summer and pretty, frilly strapless dresses, and not have to hide in oversized sweaters stolen from my dad, who would then get irritated when his sweaters came back stretched out.

I have never understood why any woman would pay any sum of money to increase their bust size and why so many of them have told me how lucky I am to have such an ample bosom. Why could they just not be happy to have clothing fit them, to be able to button sweaters and shirts without gaping and pulling and wear the same size on top and on bottom? I've kept the dress I wore to my rehearsal dinner in my closet as I love the crazy pattern and the memories, but despite the fact that it still fits through the hips and butt, my boobs have gotten two cup sizes bigger in four years. I'm wearing the dress at work today, unbuttoned on top, with a slip underneath and a sweater over, but the sweater keeps slipping off my chest due to the slinky fabric, so I've been walking around all day surreptitiously holding things in front of my chest and pinching the fabric closed with my fingers, like a nervous habit.

After my hysterectomy, my ovaries kept churning out hormones, but my uterus wasn't there any more to tell them when to stop. So, for a year, my boobs would get bigger every month and never shrink back after the estrogen flood stopped. I went from being a 36DDD to a 36G or H. Most people scoff disbelievingly when I tell them that I'm a 36, as I'm such a big girl, but I have teeny, tiny bones-little itty bitty fingers are my proof. My wedding ring is a size 5 1/2. Besides, it isn't the rib cage size that indicates breast size, it's the cup size. I remember watching a terrible daytime talk show where young women dressed too provocatively and their families were ashamed. One such woman's sister was saying that, because her trampy little sis had a size 38 D chest, she felt as though she had the obligation to expose it. I blinked disbelievingly at the screen. 38 D?? Whoopee. The D is the only thing that matters in boob sizing, not the 38, and D is absolutely nothing.

Even now, as an adult, I have grown men in my workplace who have never looked me in the eye. During a production where I wore a corset and had extraordinary cleavage, my torso was under great discussion in the men's dressing room. Even the other girls in mine had to ask what size I was, as my God, they're just so huge.

Every large chested girl will sing the lament of the baggy waist and tight chest in everything she tries on. If it fits in the bust, it will be massive in the waist. All of my shirts need to be tailored, but I don't have the skill or the money, and if I do end up having clothes that fit both my bust and waist, my bust looks even more enormous by comparison.

I think I will inevitably have to get a reduction, but I don't want to get a divorce, which would probably be a preoperative procedure for me. Breasts hold a weird fascination for straight men for two sacs of fat and glands.