“I’m sorry, but we don’t carry those sizes,” the salesclerk said to my mother, who was helping me buy my first bra. In the large, bright department store, I felt small; smaller than the budding bumps on my chest, smaller than my projected bra size with its cute yet mocking name, “Barely A.” It seemed my breasts were so small that many companies didn’t make bras that would fit me. “You can try Macy’s,” was the only advice the salesclerk offered.
Earlier that week I had approached my mother and asked, “Can you take me to buy a bra?” I was twelve-years-old, and although I didn’t really need a bra, I had a nagging feeling that I should start wearing one. My mother, who was reading a book at the kitchen table, stopped for a moment and looked from my chest to my eyes before asking, “Why?” in a matter-of-fact, flat tone, not unlike the shape of my chest.
Although her question was insensitively posed, she was somewhat justified. Why, exactly, did I feel such pressure to wear a bra? Two years earlier, my school had separated the girls and boys and gave us the appropriate puberty talks, accompanied by gifts of deodorant, tampons, maxi pads, information pamphlets, and other things the school thought might help ease us into our changing bodies. I absorbed the pamphlet’s diagram that showed the series of drawings on breast growth, read up about ovaries and menstruation, and awaited with nervous excitement for was about to come. Then I waited some more.
In the two years that followed, many of my girlfriends started increasing cup sizes like I increased inches on my height. It seemed my body had gotten the message to grow up, just not out. At a height of five foot eight, I towered over all of the girls and most of the boys my age. I didn’t grow into the hourglass figure the pamphlets depicted. Instead, I sprouted into a ragged rectangle. This was in no way a physical problem, but I felt left out of an experience that my girlfriends shared, like my invitation to adulthood had gotten lost in the mail.
While most girls needed a bra for physical support, I wanted one for emotional support. I fixated on one body part, while a host of other things began to change in me. Although I wasn’t sharing this particular experience with my girlfriends, I did have many unique experiences that were just as special. My face began to take shape, my muscles grew stronger, and I started to develop real interests in things that used to be only hobbies. I felt more in control over the world around me in a way that was exhilarating.
When I finally walked out of the mall with a bra that fit, I first felt happy and accomplished. But at the same time, the bra felt so small in my hands, just a tiny piece of fabric, that I knew it was only a little part of a much larger whole, and I decided I wouldn’t let it define the person I was about to become.
Image © Volokhatiuk | Dreamstime.com