It's been over five years since my breast reduction surgery. I was flipping through an old journal and I came across some things I wrote before and after the procedure.
"These giant balloons can't possibly be part of my body. They don't feel right. They don't even feel like a part of me."
I wrote about emotional pain. I wrote with self-loathing and criticism. I wrote about how shirts didn't fit right and how it was impossible to take notes in the desks at school. I literally selected my courses so I didn't have to squeeze into the auditorium desks (the ones with the flip open desk surfaces).
Now I realize... the chairs were too damned small for my generous rack, lovely readers!
While I genuinely experienced physical back/neck pain, I realize that my self-loathing was also shaped by the constraints of the heteropatriarchy. My breasts must be validated. Acceptable. Alluring. Sexy. Pleasing. Just big enough to be "womanly", but small enough to avoid circus-freak stares. Surgery certainly helped shape a more healthy future for my back, but it didn't change the self-hatred and criticism. After a brief period of novelty and happiness with my new size, the self-loathing began to well up inside of me. I was no longer able to project it on to my breasts.
Now it was the surgery scars.
My muscular calves.
My unruly curls.
My curvy, fat body.
My love of other breasts.
My laughter.
My face.
Myself.
I realized that I hated myself. I absorbed these lies and accepted them, unconditionally, as truth.
Then it clicked. I suddenly understood the phrase, "Self love is a radical act". Wow. How come I had never realized this before?! I was kept docile and self-destructive by the very nature of the oppressive narratives created about bodies.
What is more rebellious than loving ourselves completely and unconditionally? What is more radical than feeding, loving, caressing, touching, accepting and taking care of this beautiful body of mine?
We deserve nothing less.
