A new size, a new perspective?

I went shopping for a new bra today.  Now, to put this trip in context, you must know that the last time I shopped for a bra was before I got pregnant for the first time.  That would put it at....about six years.  Six years!  For six years, I have worn a succession of nursing bras, sports bras, and three brightly colored Victoria's Secret underwire bras.  These VS bras were, back in the day, very sexy.  One, in particular, was kind of an orangey-red and made me feel thin, as it only fit at least 6 months post-partum.  All three of these are size 34B (this is important info for later).

But, the years of wear and washing take their toll, and the bras were getting dull and very loose.  After a couple weeks of the subtle insanity of having the straps slowly...slip...down...my...shoulders time after time, I decided that I would have to bite the bullet and update my collection.

This, for me, is torture.  Between the appearance of side-boob and that terrible lemon-yellow lighting, the bra section can be ego-destroying.  But, push had come to shove, and into the bra section I went.  I was faced with rows of bras, all in variety of colors.  Push-ups, lift-ups, invisible-under-shirts, super-push-ups, the possibilities seemed endless.  I picked a couple in my size (34B, right?) and walked halfway across the store to the fitting room, where the lady handed me a card and waved me disinterestedly into a room.

I took off my coat, and my fleece, and my shirt, and old orangey-red.  I bravely put on the first bra....and couldn't even snap it together.  I thought that maybe it was just the particular brand that ran small, until I tried on the next, and the next, and felt like I was delving into the petite section.  I was confused.  I knew my size.  Anything larger was part of my plastic surgery fantasy.  36C please, doctor, I don't want to go too big.  Maybe those years of pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding, and child-rearing had actually done something to my breasts!  I looked in the mirror, really looked, and what I saw was not what I expected.  It's funny how much of what you see in the mirror every day is what you expect versus what's really there.

So, I headed back out to the racks.  Something had changed.  Up to this point, everything physical that had resulted from carrying my children had seemed to be ephemeral, or at least acceptable.  I lost most of the baby weight.  I loved the stretch marks.  My breasts were different.  The change that I had seen, and was now experiencing hard evidence of, was different.

I picked out a new size, a size that in a former life would have been something awesome and attractive. 36C.  I didn't believe it, but the squished feeling from earlier convinced me to try something radical.  I headed back into the fitting room.  The lady there looked even more unimpressed than before.  The new bras fit.  I was the size I had always longed for, but how I had gotten here felt a little hollow, a little unimpressive.  It wasn't so much rising to the occasion as falling into it.

I left the store lost in thought.  I had two new bras, in my new size.  What should have been a feeling of success over my shopping trip had given way to a new feeling of insecurity.  Was I really so different?  What else about me has changed that I don't really notice every day in the mirror?  Until now, childbirth had been a completely empowering experience, and now I felt like I was caught in the wake.  Do the breasts make a woman?  Then, I thought, my new bras help me to stand up straight and tall.  The straps do not slip.  If this is my new shape, I will wear it proudly.  Three kids.  Boo-yah.