En route to the hospital last week, cloaked in a cocoon of inky pre-dawn smog, I turned to my husband and asked:”Aren’t you sick of making this trip?”
He responded: “Aren’t you?”
What a stupid question. Of course!
We were travelling to my tenth breast revision procedure. I’ve decided that it was time to just call it what it was: over.
My last tire rotation was meant to be the final curtain call. The right implant was the incorrect shape and size. I looked like a malformed garden gnome and decided to, once again, realign and replace. We thought that was it! Mission Complete! Over and done! Until that little stinker escaped from its donor tissue hammock and fell overboard, travelling south toward my kneecap.
Since my initial diagnosis 10 years ago, no two mammaries had been through more tweaking, rearranging, alterations, or fine tuning than the ones I was sporting. They had been subject to surgeries, infection, removal, replacement, and encapsulation almost more times than I can count. And then it came…the Falling of the Implants! One decided to cross lanes and go down the wrong highway. Six months later, its twin made the same malcontent expedition.
And now to my breast epiphany…this might not be what you were expecting!?
A few weeks ago, I took a good, hard look at myself. I saw the ridiculousness of all that I had put my body through. I decided to call the game. I looked like an old patchwork quilt, and for what? I was done, my boobs were done, and I’m certain my beleaguered plastic surgeon wanted to be done. (Listen, who told him to give me his personal cell phone number in the first place? Rookie.)
I examined myself from the front. I looked at myself from the side. I peered into my eyes and said: “Maria, say goodbye to these two bumps on a log. It’s not like Jack brought you magic beans to grow a set of perfectly normal beanstalks. These have to go.”
I no longer had the strength to continue revising what I never thought was that important to begin with. Sadly, somewhere during the last several hundred years, breasts have become more than just sustenance for our babies. Along the way they became ridiculously important to women the world over and we all became brainwashed and preoccupied by the fallacy that our souls are entangled with the look of our bodies. Consequentially, women decided to change themselves and board the Perfection Express. We care too much and are desperate to reconfigure what we imagine is askew! I have now decided not to care anymore.
So last week, I removed my implants forever. I asked if I could have at least one to hang on my Christmas tree. They said something about toxic bio-hazards and incinerators. Sigh. That would have been the best conversation starter ever, sitting around a Christmas tree since you-know-who laid in the manger, waiting for his frankincense.
Immediately after surgery, I disrobed in front of the mirror and, instead of feeling disgust or revulsion, here is what I felt: unfettered, flat relief.
It was finally over. No more. I am free!
*Reprinted from The Sunday Dispatch*
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