When I was about 13, my best friend suddenly developed a chest. It was astounding how it changed everything she wore and everyone she encountered. It gave her prepubescent body immediate grace and elegance. Her tank tops turned from childish to stylish as they emphasised her narrow waist, sweeping down from the soft curve where the fabric stretched smooth across her breasts.
Bell bottoms looked intensely gorgeous because of the exaggerated hourglass figure it painted. Even better when paired with Doc Martins, which ere very in at the time, not just niche like now. Seriously, everyone had at least one pair. Or a fake pair, like me.
Her Alien (take me to your dealer) holographic necklace nestled contentedly in the gentle nook of her bossom.
Boys went ballistic.
This was in the 8th grade at the art school she and I went to. Our first year in High school. The problem there was that in order to fit in; you had to either be extremely weird (bonus points for actually having any discernable talent whatsoever) or have boobs. Preferably both.
Neither my friend, let's call her Kelly, nor I were really weird enough. Kelly wasn't weird at all. She was fun, outgoing and most importantly, had boobs.
Me on the other hand kind of possibly resembled Igor lurking behind the brilliant Dr Frankenstein (if Frankenstein had sleek glossy hair, cute mini skirts and fresh new C cups).
I was facing a dilemma. I had been a little weird all my life (I am still not sure why exactly but I do know that people often experience me as being weird because they tell me).
Being a little weird and not good at sports meant not really fitting in anywhere at school. Being under-weird at the art school didn't work either. And the most tragic fact of all; I had no boobage to speak of at all.
Wherever Kelly went boys fell all over themselves and each other, opening doors, trying to start conversations and cracking jokes or showing off in some or other way.
Then poor little ugly step sister would appear and I could swear they fell back trying to hide their horror and pity.
I couldn't wear a tank top because I was unfortunately cursed with severe acne that affected not only my face but also my shoulders, back and decolletage. And I'm not talking about cute little Oxy-10 pimples with sweet little white tips. I mean, open burn-wound style carbuncles, oozing and glistening all over the place.
So I wore t-shirts. My alien holographic necklace just flopped around my neck wherever I went.
My bellbottoms made me look a bit like a piece of clay that used to be a ball but then gravity made it into a stocky pear-shaped blob. And to top it all off, I somehow still had a fringe, even though my blonde curls absolutely could not pull this look off. I believe I resembled a thatched lapa, with one end of the roof shorter so people can come and go in as they please.
On top of that, my mouth felt dry all the time which made speaking challenging and I was a nervous wreck about having bad breath.
Boys reacted...unfavorably towards me. Apart from the one I really actually lusted after with my whole quasimodo heart. He was nice. I still honestly have no idea why. Maybe pity. He once asked me about my horse riding lessons and said we should go riding together sometime. Did I dream this? Why would you say that to someone if it's not a come-on?
Nervous psychobabble?
I probably dreamed it.
Anyhoo, I felt like if only I could have boobs, nobody would notice my hair, breath, acne, the way my tongue stuck to my palate when I spoke or my devastating lack of social wit and aplomb.
But they did not come.
At a party one night I struck up a conversation with a very cute guy (it was dark and someone must have given me some booze because how else could I manage this superhuman feat?). His name was Graham. He was older and english and had black hair and blue eyes and he was the dj at the party so much cred and coolness right there.
He planted a very clumsy, slobbery kiss on my mouth and pawed around my chest area a bit like someone looking for a light switch in the dark but after not finding anything there, gave up and went back to smoking without inhaling with all the other kids.
Boobs are big, y'all. Even small ones.
Eventually both Kelly and I returned to my former school where we were welcomed by our old friends with open arms.
Her by a bunch of insanely attractive, highly athletic, super cool kids and me by my motley crew of outcasts as we affectionately named ourselves.
Our group consisted of the following personality types;
The goth/wiccan/witch
The chemistry prodigy
The gay guy
The secret gay guy(s)
The guy who called himself Vlad and told everyone that he is a "psychic vampire" (he was sexy so we let him in and also, we let anyone and everyone in if they wanted in)
The Pliggie
The über nerd
The Ginger (this was before they were hot)
The German
And me.
Our core group started with just us four girls, we called ourselves Aden because our initials spelled it. I suppose we could have been Dean just as well but Supernatural had not happened back then or it would have been a serious contender.
The three of them had already been blessed with proud, full breasts, each bigger and rounder and more lovely than the next. I was crushed.
Luckily by then I had stumbled upon a pill that magically erases any and all traces of acne from your body and only destroys your liver a little bit. At this point in my life I had literally no idea that I would one day become a proudly functional alcoholic and would need my liver in top form in order to continue successfully but I digress.
So that cleared up the problem of the horrible debilitating zits.
I had grown out my fringe and gotten a hair straightener and had nice long swishy blonde hair.
I even managed to get a boyfriend. He was forever playing with my hair (probably because I didn't have boobs for him to play with) and today he is a very successful hairdresser. Of course I take a lot of the credit for that. Incidentally, I know what you're thinking and surprisingly no he's not gay. At least it sure didn't seem that way back then and doesn't now either.
But who is to say how human sexuality really works, I sure have seen some lines being rubbed out and pencilled back in and then rubbed out again in my few years on this planet.
That's it; we're all just looking for our own spot to scribble away at the white board of human psyche and sexual orientation.
Once we were 16, I still pretty much looked like a mosquito had a drink on one side of my chest, alighted, reconsidered his life choices and then landed for one more quick meal on the other side before being on his way.
This was...this was just...fucking...bullshit!
Sure sure, beauty comes from within, you shouldn't change yourself for a man, there's nothing wrong with you, the media is painting false expectations blah blah blah.
Yeah easy for you to say with your "boklammer" tieties!
Where are my boklammers? Did God forget to give me a dose? Did my prayer for big boobs and a small nose get garbled and now I have a huge shnoz and zero boobs?
I never ever slept on my stomach again because what if I had started developing breasts and then slept them into pancakes again?
But, as is the custom, life went on and just got crazier and crazier. First matric. Then gap year, then college, then marriage, then addiction, then divorce and finally I was standing still and wondering what the hell had just happened to me. Who am I?
Well I had no freakin idea but I did know one thing; I have always wanted boobs and by golly I was going to get them for my damn self.
On account of this post already being too long, I will leave to your imagination the kind of begging, stealing and borrowing I had to do to finance this whim.
Waking up from the surgery, my first thought was that this is a practical joke. The sheer agony that was radiating from my upper body could not possibly be real or allowed to exist in a rational world.
I had once heard a woman describe this pain in a very silly, over exaggerated way which I now realised was more like an objective scientific case study description.
She said that she felt like a ten ton truck, filled with burning coal, wheels full of long nails, sticking out of them like Hellraiser's head, had run over her torso, backed up and run over her again. Everything was pulverised and kneaded into a semi-solid blubbering mess and underneath it all, a small bubble of acid ate away deeper and deeper and deeper, stopping just centimeters from her heart, lungs and other vital organs, causing heart rate and breathing to go erratic and at times stop dead.
I croaked out a sound of disbelief and objection but nobody heard me except my dearest mother who immediately barked at the (male) nurse to give me large quantities of pain drugs or she'll clobber him over the head with her purse.
He obediently went to fetch the pethidine injection (people listen when my mother goes into hulk smash mode) but when the time came to angle me slightly onto my side in order to gain access to the muscle in my upper bum where the drugs go, I could not move a millimeter without a high pitched screech fountaining up out of my mouth, ricocheting around the hospital and upsetting everyone.
Eventually he did manage and even though the pain didn't completely dissapear, it mercifully took a walk further out into the dessert and sat down on a rock, it's chin propped in its hand, waiting for the meds to wear off so it could come yell into my face again. I could see it sitting there, counting the minutes, knowing these shots can only be given every 6 hours but he is free to come torment me again after just 3.
That night I had to go wee wee and I asked the matron on duty how it works, is there a catheter or a bed pan or...
"You have to get up and go to the bathroom" she said angrily. Oh gosh she was so angry. Why? What happened to you?
"Come again?"
"Yes, it's good for you to walk."
"But I can't blink my eyes without passing out a little. How can I walk? Or sit up even?"
"It's not that bad" she said unsympathetically.
I didn't think she had ever had a boob job, peering at her perfectly ironed uniform.
"Oh. Well, that's okay then, I don't mind sleeping in a wet bed. Thanks anyway"
She begrudgingly brought a bed pan when she saw that I was serious and getting ready to wet the bed with gusto but I had a fleeting thought that she might hit me over the head with it, *thunk!* and ironically; I would have welcomed it because Pain was back, screaming insults at me, drill-sargeant style, splittle flying onto my cheeks.
But she ended up shoving it at me and hissing: "This is wrong!" And then violently helped me slide the thing under me in order to pee a generous amount into it and the rest onto the bed. Hey, you win some you lose some.
After 3 days I could walk and talk and smile again but no driving or carrying watermelons.
They were still sore to the point of I couldn't look at them without it hurting.
Even in the shower, I would dodge those one or two strong little streams between all the nice mellow streams, as much as possible.
After a week I drove to the shops and bought and carried a watermelon.
Life was good, friends, life was good.
Once the surgical drains came out, I could start wearing normal bras and cute clothes and things again and guess what?
None of my old clothes fit me.
Because.
I.
Had.
BOOBS!
Gosh, they were the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Only years afterwards I would see two equally beautiful things and those would be the faces of my children when they are asleep.
I went to the shops and bought 20 million sun dresses. The sundress is a weird and wonderful thing. Dresses in general, really. Remember Susan Boyle's dress in her first audition? It was beautiful! But did you notice it at all? No. Why? Boobs, baby.
Boobs.
But I suppose in her case also possibly a cinched waist and a different hairstyle. And better shoes. And also a different dress.
Anyway, oh my word; that first little dress I let flutter over my shoulders snagged in a way I had never experienced before. Previously I just had to get it over my head and the rest would be history, it would fall over my shoulders right down to my hips and maybe catch there slightly so I would have to give it a tug at the back just to cover my bum but this time, it got stuck around my collar bone.
What a privilege that was. How awed and grateful I felt staring at myself in the dressing room mirror with a dress around my neck like a court jester.
I tugged it over my new breasts and smoothed it over my hips and there stood someone else. A girl with an hour glass figure. A woman.
My shoulders automatically went back, my neck straightened and I smiled.
This was the day it all changed.
I have always felt like there was a palpable difference in how people treated me depending on my hair colour.
Blonde: yeah, not too bad but maybe slightly patronising like everything I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Men especially could be a little "ja. Okay, pop. Whatever you say". Goths, however, didn't seem to mind it.
Black: made most people nervous, except for the goth crowd that felt right at home with black-haired girls.
Brown: people listened and replied in what seemed like an everyday, grown-up fashion, if ever so slightly bored and nasal.
Red: everyone asks you if you're a natural red head (is that code for the curtains/rug debate?). Goths also seem to really like red hair.
Goths might be a bit slutty.
Since having what I always thought was a typical "normal" female figure, people have been treating me differently. They'd notice me faster, they'd be more eager to help me and they'd listen more attentively to what I have to say. I don't believe it's directly linked to the boobs but rather to the massive confidence boost they have given me.
And sure, the way a dress drapes the figure 8 might have something to do with it.
Of course, now I have spent pages and pages waxing lyrical about boob jobs and not so much breastfeeding.
Well let me tell you. The pain I described earlier, waking up from anesthesia after having breast augmentation surgery very closely resembles the pain I felt when I started breastfeeding my first born.
Oh boy and she was thirsty. She was thirstier than my friends and I were after student's night at Drop Zone. And oh boy, she did not hold back. When those little lips clapped around my nipple I felt like someone had slammed a live shark attached to a sledge-hammer into me.
The only reason I kept doing it was because the pain was marginally less than the absolute torture of listening to her crying all day and all night into eternity until Tommie hung himself from the baby gate, all the cats threw themselves into the open mouths of neighbourhood alsatians and my brain cut its own wrists, bled out and I died.
She would fall asleep at the breast but stay latched like a rock oyster. Then she would wake up hungry again and oh how convenient, the buffet is open and I already dished! Then she'd poop herself and cry hysterically while gumming my poor abused breast and then dig her tiny newborn nails into the other breast, in order to better communicate her discontent.
This is an occurrence called "twiddling", and friends, this act nearly drove me sailing sideways over the edge.
You have to understand that hormones were raging through my body. Everything irritated and exhausted and overwhelmed me and to top it all off, this act of having my nipple pinched which might have been pleasurable in a previous life, was now akin to chinese water torture.
Plus, after the shock and horror of the pain of the baby latching has subsided and I have uncurled my toes, a feeling of deep sadness, hunger and thirst like a dying person in the desert must experience, would wash over me.
I had to have a massive bottle of water in each room of the house and scattered throughout the garden. These bottles had to be easy to open with one hand, also, because I perpetually had a baby locked onto me and had to hold her there with my one arm, much like a rugby ball, while brushing my teeth, eating, cooking, cleaning, wiping my ass and whatever else I wanted to do with my remaining arm.
This is part of the reason why I lost so much weight after having a second child. I had no more arms left to feed myself with. Turns out having kids can be a highly effective diet but I wouldn't recommend it. The keto diet, now theres a good one that doesn't make you wish for oblivion every five minutes.
Either way. Turns out you don't need boobs to be able to breastfeed. I mean obviously there has to be some breast tissue in there but those little rose buds, perched in front of my gorgeous prosthetic boobs were scarcely visible to the naked eye and yet they somehow managed to produce gallons of milk.
My babies drank and drank and drank and picked up weight and made tons of wet and dirty nappies (ironically this is very very good news because it means you're doing good at the breastfeeding thing and have enough milkies, yay great success!)
Even though I vowed never ever to co-sleep with my babies for fear of suffocating them by accident, I ended up yanking Dita (my first born) into bed with us after just 5 days of life for fear of suffocating her deliberately if I didn't get any sleep.
This brought us into the era of the musical beds. Tommie and I would fall asleep in our bed initially and Dita in her pram next to us, only to awaken in completely different and separate beds in the morning.
Here's why; 5 minutes after reaching a deep sleep, I would wake up with a start at the sound of a train roaring through the room. My body would go ice cold as massive amounts of adrenaline flooded my system, getting ready to fight or flee.
After realising that the roaring train was in fact my 2,8kg daughter, I would scuttle around trying to remember what made babies cry. Oh yes, I had a list. Find the phone, quickly quickly, here it is. Okay the list of things to check when baby cries:
1.) Wet/dirty nappy
2.) Hungry/thirsty
3.) Lonely
This list is by no means exhaustive and even though this seems extremely obvious to even animals, probably, when you wake up like that, not knowing what time of day it is, what day of the week it is and what species of pond scum you are, even a three bullet list is better than nothing.
I would scurry to the bathroom with the tiny roaring train and switch on the light and quickly close the door as not to bother Tommie, poor baby, and then proceed to struggle with the tiny little diaper, the baby screaming I AM LEGION into my face.
The diaper which then turned out to be completely dry and sparklingly clean.
"What. The fuck. Are you crying about, tiny bruh?"
I would offer her the boob. She would twist away from it like it's a vile mound of manure I am trying to push her face into and continue screaming baby-obsenities into the night.
I would sush and sway her and hop her up and down, turn her sideways, other sideways and even upside down and still nothing would help.
I eventually had a routine of walking around and around the diningroom table with her slumped over my shoulder, patting her little back and chanting like a native american.
"HiHowAreYou, HiHowAreYou, HiHowAreYouoooooooo"
Every time I passed the wall clock, half a minute would have passed.
These were the days and nights of our lives. Me and Dita. Dita and me. Were we even apart ever? Was she actually just an extension of my breasts and arms and shoulders and soul?
I ended up breastfeeding her until she was 2 years old. Then I weaned her but two weeks after that lock-down happened and I caved. Listen, even 5 minutes of peace was worth it. I was 30 weeks pregnant with Danté and constantly exhausted and having the option of clapping Dita to my breast mid-tantrum worked wonders and possibly saved her tiny life during that time.
2 weeks before Danté was born I weaned Dita off again. She took it well. A little sad, slightly dejected but generally philosophical about the whole thing.
When Dantétjie came and latched on for the first time, it felt only like perhaps a tiny biting insect, attached to a lily, was lightly flicked at me. I suppose my breasts had gotten baby-fit by then.
Oh my word and then Danté was there. In all her glory and wrath. She was a much happier, calmer baby at first, sure, but once she woke up to the fact that this life is cold, unforgiving and mostly meaningless, she expressed her feelings of despondency whole heartedly and without hesitation or censorship.
"Why am I here? What do I want? Give me whatever I want and quickly while you're at it. What's that you're saying? Wa bly jy, jy bly stil!" Is what it amounted to.
She breastfed 27 hours out of the 24 hour day. Three hours of which she spent chewing her food. At night I co-slept with her in a separate bed and room by then, musical beds had gotten exhausting and I had just given up and moved out of my nice, big, warm marital bed. Where my husband just occasionally copped a feel during the night, Danté tended to completely annex both my breasts with her teeth and nails and my head and limbs just kind of lolled around the bed, feeling bored and useless in comparison. I was a giant rack, living for the satiation of my feral second child.
Finally around the time Danté was 2,5 my gallbladder decided to fuck out on me, just for the fun of it. My body had started throwing me interesting little action stunts ever since Danté's cochlear implant disasters had dissipated and I was having withdrawals from adrenaline and mania.
Thanks body!
Anyway, my hair was back to blonde so the doctors thought I was probably just having some heart burn, garnished with your average garden variety female hysteria (subtype neglected mother C), which caused me to be in hospital for 5 days before they finally listened to me and tested my gallbladder, found it to be fucked and yanked it out.
Ergo; Danté was unwittingly and unceremoniously weaned at the start of December 2022. She was beyond angry, she raged like the sea during spring tide, dashing herself against things in the house and breaking her own nose against the floor, once.
I swear she did it to herself, it wasn't us!
She raged and raged and lamented and roared for months. I cried and cried and cried and Tommie forbade and admonished and threatened and eventually shit calmed down and once again I found myself washed out on a desert beach in the middle of nowhere. Tiny pieces of broken seashell stuck in my hair.
Where the hell was I?
Where had I been going?
How had I gotten here?
Which species of pond scum was I?
And most importantly; what had happened to my boobs?
When I looked down at myself, I could clearly see my silicone prosthesis still perfectly in place, securely lodged behind the chest muscle. The front bit, however, the natural breast that's been taking all the shots, the tiny hands and teeth and head butts, those were hanging like used condoms from me.
Poor things.
"Oh, I had mine redone after stopping my breastfeeding journey and it only cost about R100k and that was one of the more affordable places" one of my patients told me.
Gosh R100k...how will I ever get Tommie to give me R100k? He told me to quit breastfeeding after the first month...I could try a powerpoint presentation of how much money we had saved in formula and are going to save in antibiotics, orthodontics and psychiatric medications because breastmilk is supposed to breed happy, healthy, stable children with straight teeth...
Oh but wait! Did I mention that breastfeeding makes you as thin as a reed if you have insatiable babies?
I was unfortunately so depressed at the time that I didn't exactly don my bikini and stilettos and go dancing on beaches to celebrate my amazing new body, so it was kind of lost on me, but I suddenly realised how wonderful it was when it stopped happening and started reversing itself.
Not only did I start gaining weight rapidly but I also fell into despair and cried hysterically over the phone with my therapist.
"I want to run into the hills and live like a witch and never see or speak to anyone ever again!" I wailed at her dramatically.
"That would be the feel-good oxytocin and prolactin levels dropping in your blood stream, making you depressed..er" she responded.
Oh. Well that's just awesome. What a wonderful world.
Next thing I knew my boobs looked good again. But I couldn't find them in all my belly, hips and jowls.
Oh hell no. No no no no no.
What to do, what to do...diet?
Ugh.
And exercise?
Ugh.
Boobjob, tummy tuck, face-and-butt lift, lipo suction combo?
Yes please.
Gofundme?
Backabuddy?
Prostitution?
Watch this space...sigh...
