Stopped Wearing a Bra, Here’s What Happened

 Spoiler alert: I’m not sure anyone even noticed

Like the rest of my relationship with my body, the one with my breasts has been a journey. I remember my first training bra. It was sky blue, with a white band. My mother handed it to me in her small bedroom in the house that seemed so big to me then. I was equal parts embarrassed and excited, but that’s about all I remember. I don’t even remember wearing it.

I’ve never been very well-endowed in the chest area, my breast buds turned tubular and I was self-conscious about their shape. I didn’t need a bra even in high school, but I think I wore one anyway. I managed to fit into a B-cup for most of my adolescent and adult life, but probably could’ve gotten by with an A when I was young.

The search for bras that worked was never ending, my particular fit elusive.

When I had my first son, I learned that insufficient glandular tissue is a thing, and that my small breasts were less desirable in another way. I wasn’t able to feed my baby, and I grieved the loss of part of my womanhood and part of my motherhood.

I got older and fatter, and my breasts expanded. They grew in heft, but also spread to the sides, merging with the curves and valleys of my fat body. The search for bras that worked was never-ending, my particular fit elusive. As my band size outpaced my cup size, the gap made finding bras difficult at best. Not only that, but the larger the size the less affordable options there were.

The bras I could find got more and more uncomfortable. Even if they fit, there were red marks, digging, squeezing, and the worst offender: roaming underwires

I was so comfortable. There was no more rushing into my bedroom at the end of the day to free myself from the compression of something that pushed my natural body into a more acceptable shape. When I got a job, though, I felt like I had to revert to “normalcy.” I shopped for work clothes, and sweated through trying on bra after bra until I found the two that fit me and didn’t totally make me want to cry.