Today is my official anniversary. Yep, it was 21 {holy freaking cow} years ago today that I got my first bra. This tortorous device has been a part of my life for over two decades now. I don't know about other girls, but I was not excited at all about this momentous occasion. It felt funny, looked funny, and you could see it through my clothes. And I needed it about as badly as I needed a nuclear-powered submarine or a crate of unfiltered cigarettes. I'm pretty sure I cried that night.
I vividly remember going to JC Penny's {could you buy your first training bra anywhere else?} with my mom and little sister. I stood to the side, trying to be as invisible as possible, while my mom and clerk went through the boxes looking for just the right bra. And no embarrassment could have been worse for me than when the clerk offered my mom a tape measure to make sure we were getting the right size {You people want to measure me where?! And I have to have an audience?!}. It was my own Judy Blume, adolescent nightmare. I remember at the time thinking that my mom {who of course was just doing her proper motherly duty} had just ruined my life. Don't worry. I have since forgiven her.
This was the summer before I went into 6th grade, so of course all of the boys who noticed I had started to wear a bra were completely mature and gentlemanly about it {insert roll of eyes here}. If anyone, anyone made a direct or indirect comment about my new item of clothing, I would get to a bathroom as quickly as I could and remove it. It spent more time training the bottom of my bookbag than it did my 11-year-old chest.
Over time I've learned to deal with it, but I can't say that my feelings towards it have changed much. Now it's more of an everyday thing, so I don't think about it nearly as often. Sure, there are more styles and fabrics and such to choose from {and less people in my dressing room when I'm trying them on}, but really, it's still just an uncomfortable hassle. The funny thing is it's not like I'm a 44 DDD or anything. I'm on the average to small side when it comes to size, but I've still never gotten used to it. Maybe I never will.
So, I'm curious. Was anyone else's experience as traumatic as mine? Or were you overjoyed to join this special club? Or were you just ambivalent to it all? Just another price to pay to join the ranks of womenhood? And was it just me, or was anyone else totally bugged by the dumb flower they always stitched to the front? Really could have done without that.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
TMI? Too bad
Rambled by Miss M at 7/29/2009
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5 comments:
I think I was actually excited about the whole process. I even got one that snapped in front. Since then as my bra size increased so did the indents in my shoulders. And there is no bra, regardless of it's promise, that will ever make the shoulder straps truly comfortable.
Several years back (and I'm not going tell how many, because it's closer than I'd like to think) I got on the exercise kick and decided that I should get a sports bra. Up until that point I had no real reason to get one.
So, I get in the dressing room at Walmart's to try a few on. I got the first one on and thought, "Well, I guess this will work." All this time I'm bouncing on my feet to see if it really was helping. I go to take it off and I don't know how normal people do it, but I'm telling you, 30 seconds into the process and my elbow is next to my ear and my other arm was twisted in a strap. I literally thought that I might just have to call my mom to help me get it out of it. It was worse than a straight jacket! Several minutes later, with bruises in places I never thought possible, I got it off. I hung it up in the dressing room with it's sisters and have never thought of trying a sports bra again.
My shopping experience was more traumatic only because I had 3 sisters in the dressing room with me for the whole trying-on process! I also think that measuring you in the middle of the lingerie department is ridiculously embarassing. Can't they let you go into the dressing room or something? (I'm making a mental note to measure my daughter at HOME before we go to the store when her time comes..)
I didn't love it at first (or the attention the dorky boys at school gave it) but now I can honestly say that I don't mind it. I appreciate a lot a bra that fits well and does it's job--which in my case is to push up & out and fool the world into thinking there is something more than what there really is!
Sorry your relationship with them is more hate than love...
I am pretty sure my first bra shopping experience was just as humiliating, but I don't really remember it. I may have used my sister's hand-me-downs! I do, however, remember when my STEP-DAD took me to buy a new bra before I went to Germany. I think that was about the worst day of my 14 year old life. What was my mother thinking??
Megs
being the youngest of 5, 3 of which were sisters, i didn't get the one on one time with my mom that maybe i should have. my first bra was a hand me down, that didn't fit by the way, by the time it was my turn to have a bra my mom was tired of it all and didn't really think much about it.
marie, you really should write a book. you have such a way with words.
That's kind of weird that you know when you got your first bra, but that's ok. We can still be friends. And now you can remember Phil's birthday - because it is the 29th of July. Hahahahahah!!
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