secrets from a girl who's seen it all

tw: sexual harassment, body dysphoria.

dancing with my girls, only having two drinks and leaving/it's a funny thing thought you'd never gain self-control...

i have been totally in love with lorde's "secrets from a girl who's seen it all" over the past couple of days. unemployed for the summer has left me counting down the hours to breast reduction surgery (57 right now, 56 in a couple minutes...) i am glad i found this platform as a low stakes way to share stories from my life in a safe online community. 

...guess it's been a while since you last said sorry/crying in the dark at your best friend's parties...

i am incredibly excited about this upcoming surgery. it's a strange thing when you wake up in a woman's body one day. this is something that's been dealt with since the beginning of time and nothing prepares you for it. maybe part of it is the unfamiliarity with which our own mothers treat their bodies.

as an early teen, i went from A-cups to D-cups nearly over night in eighth grade and seemingly never stopped. it became harder to figure out what i was supposed to do with this new figure i had acquired - embrace it and use it, push down feelings of shame and discomfort - no one could tell me how to be a girl with big boobs. part of me understood the appeal they were supposed to have at fifteen, hopes that it would make boys turn my way (having a part of your body that's viewed as a vessel for the opposite sex's pleasure makes it a bit harder to come to terms with sexuality. imo.)

...you've had enough/gotta turn the lights on, go home...

however, an experience with a high school substitute teacher w/ some weight in local politics made any attempts to harness this sexual appeal melt into sobering shame that followed me from my small hometown to college and all the way back. senior year had just started - the first day - and i'd worn a nice pink ensemble, a plain t-shirt (crewneck, pastel pink) with matching pants (darker pink with a pastel panel on either leg). eating lunch in the art room (yes, i am incredibly guilty of being a high-school-cafeteria-avoider), it was a friend and i with the sub. the teacher whose classroom it was was progressive and kind, if a little overbearing on students she thought would succeed. anywho, she preferred this substitute teacher. in a small, highly conservative town, the few liberal teachers were usually known to the students, and as a liberal student (oh, yes, the democratic machine in town was a rough crowd of over 65s), we were known to them as well.

...couldn't wait to turn fifteen/then you blink and its been ten (six) years...

from this teacher, a friend and i could expect knowing winks that were just as creepy at sixteen as they are at twenty-one. now, going into senior year, it still felt like i was scrounging around for people who understood me and who would not drop me when someone cooler came along. it's high school, okay? insecurity's the name of the game. so as a friend and i headed into the art room, the sub thought then was a perfect time to tell me how well i'd grown into my body over the summer. oof. not often the flashpoint of - bam, you are your pair of tits and that, nothing else, is how men perceive you - is so potent.

...growing up a little at a time then all at once...

it was an uncomfortable experience. packing for college the following summer, i found the top i'd worn that day and tossed it in the trash. one day in the fall, i found out he'd been elected to town council. a different friend (another student whose liberal leanings singled her out as well) and i talked on the phone for an hour, hanging up and telling each other that we could not breathe another word of these instances until he was dead.

it's important that i say this here - that after this incident, i tried valiantly to take back some of the power of hearing that comment and trying to think that people saw me as more than the body i have always been so scared of. looking back, it makes sense why it was so hard to find my place in later social groups i sought out (greek life, international bureaucracy LARP) - i could never be comfortable. in greek life, constantly flowing alcohol brought me out of my shell and masked shame with surface-level pride (until i brought the guard all the way back up, another story for another time) and in int'l. bureaucracy LARP club, the worries of not finding fitting clothing were an incessant struggle. 

...everybody wants the best for ya, but you gotta want it for yourself, my love...

i think this experience impacted me a lot deeper than i had let myself believe. this realization could not happen until now, when my chest was a massive anchor and reminder of secrets i am keeping and the creeping feeling of being seen as somehow inherently sexual (hook-ups i'd had with men after, where they'd grope around my tits aimlessly, even then i'd feel a flush of embarrassment and that familiar feeling of not knowing what to do, paralyzed with dread).

it is also now that i can look forward in a way i have not been able to before (back and shoulders straighter than ever before). it is so close that it is nearly tangible. i bet recovery will be a bitch, but still. it is hard to explain the anticipation to others, to explain the necessity of the procedure goes beyond physical.

...you can take 'em if you want 'em, these are just/secrets from a girl, who's seen it all...