When Mark came home, I lost my mind on the poor guy. Girl, I was Interrupted. The worst part of me going apeshit on him is that as much as I loved being the victim and stewing in my glorious self-righteous indignation, it turns out that I was crazy, but not crazy enough to check the date the photos were taken. Turns out, the photos were from years before we had even met. I probably should have known given the orange iMac G3 desktop computer in the background of the nudies, but this was way before I developed a relationship with the concept of logic.
That day I learned the hard way that a quick double tap shows you the date a picture was taken, but the real takeaway from this mess was that the photos only heightened my paranoia about my unacceptable body, given that they were of nothing but boobs. Looking back with a modicum of clarity, I can now say they were actually really beautiful, but that was the problem. Her breasts were gorgeous, perky, symmetrical, and—dare I say it?—effortless. I know that’s a weird adjective to use when describing breasts, but for my whole life thus far, my boobs were a full-time job to manage: the hiding, the manipulating, the leveling, the resenting, the squishing. I just wanted my boobs to be easy.
After this incident, I became even more obsessed with breasts, or maybe more specifically, my lack of symmetrical ones. I hope this admission doesn’t get me slapped with multiple lawsuits, but I was so into comparing myself to other women that when I went to the gym I started ogling women’s breasts while furiously working out on the elliptical. They’re everywhere! And they’re all so unique and bouncy! This was the closest I will probably ever be to understanding what it’s like to be a man, and guys, please hear me when I say this: I am so sorry for your plight. I had no idea. Being transfixed by boobs is exhausting.
And yes, I often pondered if this traumatic incident suddenly made me reject men and “become” a lesbian or something. But that’s not really how neurology or being gay works. I wish it had been that simple; in fact, it’s always been a dream of mine to be a lesbian, but I guess the universe didn’t want that for me. It wanted me to live a life of redundant fighting about fighting and a revolving door of stubbly testicles.
My self-loathing was exacerbated by every perfect set of breasts I saw. One of my favorite quotes is from an inspirational speaker named Iyanla Vanzant: “Comparison is an act of violence against the self.” That quote hit me right in the solar plexus. If comparison is a form of violence against yourself, me, myself, and I were in a nuclear war.
One day after a dentist appointment, I was walking through Beverly Hills, looking for my car, which I swear isn’t as boring as it sounds, given that in my twenties, parking my car always became a psychological thriller. I never remembered where it was and always put too little money in the meter, so every time I parked, I would basically go into debt. This was way before I understood that spending three extra minutes to do something right could save you an hour and eighty dollars in the long run. I had not yet subscribed to a slogan I now live by from the Navy SEALs: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” Ironic enough, when I was twenty-five, finding my car an hour after I parked it was a job cut out only for SEAL Team Six.
So I was desperately speed-walking around Beverly Hills, looking for my car as if I were five and lost my mother at the mall. My heart was racing, my bank account bracing. I walked past all the fancy stores, luminescent and wasteful, blinded by the relentless L.A. sun. Every time I walk around Beverly Hills, I’m consumed by both wonder and disgust. It feels like I’m finally in the streets of Oz that I so badly wanted to skip down as a kid, but now that I’m here, it’s ultimately just a bunch of stuff I can’t afford behind glass I can’t break. Given my proclivity to become enamored with unavailable people and things, Rodeo Drive is my Narnia. I temporarily stopped looking for my car and became hypnotized by the resplendent windows of Fendi, Gucci, and Prada. This was in 2008, when Gucci had a season of glam western-inspired clothing, which is my kryptonite, given it’s pretty much my dream in life to be confident enough to dress like a rhinestone cowgirl.
My fantasy came to an abrupt halt when an employee appeared from behind a mannequin and started undressing it. Rather violently, if I may say so myself. It’s probably not healthy to anthropomorphize a mannequin, but I was truly worried about it. Her. Anyway, seconds later I was face-to-face with the emaciated mannequin, toe-to-toe with her cubist head and vacant eyes. After a moment I realized that I was essentially looking at myself. Maybe that’s why I assigned human qualities to her, because it was like looking in a mirror. Only the mannequin had perfect, symmetrical breasts, with tiny white nipples, of course. I looked at her face. She looked oddly proud. I can’t say it sat well with me that an inanimate, expressionless body made of fiberglass looked happier than I was. I suddenly noticed in the reflection that my head fit perfectly on the mannequin’s body, and all my features were superimposed over hers. I saw a vision of what it would be like to have symmetrical breasts. For a fleeting moment, I felt perfect.
I kept walking, brain on fire about how I would get those mannequin boobs onto my sternum. As I perused the other store windows, I came across a small door in between the luxury brand behemoths. Something—maybe the lack of luster—drew me to it. This door was the ugly duckling in the Emerald City that is Beverly Hills. On it was a litany of doctors’ names in faded gold letters: cosmetic dentistry, rhinoplasty, veneers. And there it was: breast reconstruction. I had fantasized many times before about getting one small implant to even things out, but it went against everything I believed in. I wanted to be a role model, a paragon of self-acceptance. I wanted to be the person I needed when I was a kid, so a procedure to alter my appearance was always out of the question. There is no way I was going to let someone hack into my body to mold me into society’s impossible physical ideal. Also, I didn’t have money, so I couldn’t really afford to believe anything else.
I opened the door and walked down a long hallway. I came across the door for the doctor who did breast reconstruction: it was a very underwhelming door. I had somewhat of an out-of-body experience when I went into the office. My survivalist brain took over and dragged me to the reception desk, where I asked for an appointment with the doctor. She was incredibly nice, which I found shocking. I assumed she’d judge me, throw tomatoes at me, laugh at me, accuse me of being insecure and shallow, tell me I was contributing to a harmful social construct—all the things I was accusing myself of in my head. This was before I knew that we assume everyone sees us the way we see ourselves. I was disgusted with myself, so I figured she would be disgusted with me, too. The only judgment she expressed was when I pulled out my sad check card, which you could tell before swiping it wasn’t gonna go through.