Bras post breast-feeding. The struggle is REAL.

mumonthenetheredge - 27 Nov 16

About every three weeks or so, I decide that it’s high time to sort my life out.

This is almost always a mistake.

This time though, I decided it was going to be different.

This time, I was going to start with my boobs.

Yep, this week it became clear to me that it is in fact my underwear holding me back from undefined but probably GREAT THINGS . (Not, you know, my chronic exhaustion, crushing sense of inadequacy, borderline personality disorder or general incompetence. No no).

What’s more, it could well be my undercrackers jinxing the whole of 2016.

I mean, who really knows? My lingerie rut may have been responsible for numerous untimely celebrity deaths, and the unerring descent of the world into postmodern fascism. (Frankly it seems as likely an explanation as anything else I’ve read, usually involving the socio-economic disenfranchisement of the middle/working/lower classes, climate change, or the second coming).

If you’ve not heard of it before it’s called the butterfly effect. The idea is that the smallest of flutters can cause catastrophic ripples in, er, the space time continuum. Or something. And believe me, we’re not talking about delicate fluttering here. We’re talking pendulous swinging. Those are some pretty big ripples. (With an ‘r,’ with an ‘r’).

Anyhoo, all I really know is that I’ve been stuck for some time now in the nork-limbo of not wanting to buy more nursing bras because nursing was pretty much over, and clinging to the comfort of both my breastfeeding days and my buttery soft, flexible cups.

Those soft cups are now so old and so soft they’ve lost any questionable buoyancy or support they might once have had. To be honest, mere material was always fighting a losing battle against gravity, but the sag has been so gradual that I only really noticed it when I had to hoik my tits out of the way to button up my trousers. (I really, really wish that was an exaggeration. Dadontheedge is a lucky man indeed).

The epiphany hit.

And I knew I had let both my standards and my chest slip too far.

So for the good of my boobs, my life in general and very probably the world at large, I hit M&S in my lunch hour on Monday. I tried on a million REAL bras, with actual structure and bone fide UNDERWIRING.

All of which looked shit.

Basically I have no idea what size I am, or what style now suits my post-baby bosoms, and I am far too old, tired and unshaven to face the social awkwardness of having another grown woman lose and then attempt to retrieve her tape measure from the uncharted depths of my considerable overhang.

I used to be a balconette woman, because I like(d) things up front and central. For some reason the tops of my boobs are now kind of empty, so this style now looks like I’m smuggling two collapsing souffles. Everything else was variously puffy, bulgy, wonky, inexplicably empty, gave me torpedo tits, or dangerously unstable mashed potato cleavage – the lumpy kind.  

Undeterred, and buoyed by the novel sight of my midsection, I picked the least hideous of my options, and congratulated myself on my success – and the inevitable personal and global successes that would follow in due course.  

Obviously, I avoided actually WEARING the new bra for a few days (and I therefore blame myself for the massive tit that is Nigel Farage ingratiating himself further with the White House. My bad). In my defence, I’m afraid neglecting the bra was too easy to do when my morning routine involves throwing a questionably clean top on over bobbly leggings, dragging my hair into a mum-bun and shouting at my children to get dressed, eat breakfast, find their fucking shoes and stop trying to wind each other up.

Anyway, later in the week I had a big meeting. So I decided, in my wisdom, to man up – or at least mammary up – venture into real underwear, and power dress my boobs for the occasion.

By about 10am this decision had sparked many, many questions. Amongst them, the following:

• Why why why IN GOD’S NAME would women do this to themselves?
• Who invented this device? Take me to them.
• Are my organs going to be permanently damaged, a la Victorian corset wearers?
• Are there actually crescent shaped cuts in the top roll of my stomach?
• Who arbitrarily decided what level/location was socially and aesthetically acceptable for breasts in the first place? Take me to them.
• How the cock-wombling, sky-blue fucking hell did I used to do this very day?

and

• Can anyone actually see me whimper with every deep breath?

Fortunately I had, at the last moment, baulked at leaving my beloved (and conveniently collapsible) soft cup nursing bra at home, and stuffed it into the bottom of my handbag.

By 11am I had caved.

Four minutes later I returned from the toilets to my desk in blissful, hip level, unfettered glory – and with a bulging handbag. I literally cannot describe the magnitude of my relief to you. It was like the best, longest, most satisfying orgasm of my entire life. Or possibly one of those melty middle chocolate puddings. I shit you not.

So the thing is, 2016 might actually get even shitter before it is mercifully over in five short weeks, for which I can only apologise. But I simply cannot take one for the team by subjecting myself to personal tit torture for the greater good. I’m no martyr.

And anyway, it occurs to me that Trump probably WANTS my boobs to be nice and high and on display, given his proclivities. In fact, now I think about it, it’s probably on his list of planned legislation – right after banning abortions and limiting the procreation of brown people. Official heights and angles will likely be based on Meliana’s vital statistics, and policed personally by slimy elderly white men with shiny eyes and wet lips. Or Trump himself.

So frankly I’m not going to give him the bloody satisfaction.

#Freetheboobs! #Vivelesaggytits! #Downwiththissortofpersonalscaffolding.

That’ll show him.

In another three weeks maybe I’ll try and save/distract myself/the world through some other medium. Possibly feng shui. Or a new skin care regime. Ora new pair of winter ankle boots.

Oooo ankle boots….

Mumonthenetheredge

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mumonthenetheredge

Mumonthenetheredge is a neurotic mum-of-two from the Nether Edge in Sheffield. Expect anxiety and profanity. Not necessarily in that order.

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