Wednesday, May 30, 2012

storms

Last night I stood at our back door watching quarter sized hail beat down on our porch. I stuffed towels in the cracks of the windows in our living room, trying in vain to keep the damage at a minimum.

It was so loud, like there were thousands of tiny trolls standing on our metal roof pounding it with tiny hammers.

I had the kids laying on the floor in bedroom, far away from the window. A trip to the emergency room due to flying glass wasn't high on my list of things I wanted to do.

I walked from the TV to the back door, back and forth back and forth.

Texting my mom and sister, letting them know what the TV was saying in case my mom and dad had to take cover since their power had gone out. The storm was so much worse there. Half of the tree in their front yard is gone.

Oklahoma. I've spent so much time defending it and every spring/summer it tries to destroy us. And it hasn't even been kind enough to blow our house away so we can get a new one...

It was such a late night...restless with all my offspring crowding my bed. Cory woke me up and told me to move from the bedroom floor to the couch. I don't even remember moving to the floor.


Then offspring #3 followed me to the couch.

Sleep has been difficult to catch lately, although it's so desperately needed. 
Our bed was comfortable...when it was new in 1973. 
Every morning we wake up with sore backs, wishing for change.

Extra coffee has been not just desired, but required.

I've been wondering a lot lately when we'll catch our big break. It seems like 2012 thus far has brought with it busted tires, broken dishwashers, headaches, weird rashes, sleepless nights, and frustration.

I was expecting things to change and get easier. And I'm still waiting.

To be completely honest with you, I'm no longer in the mood to be optimistic. This glass is half fucking empty. We're good people. Cory works his ass off. I wake up every morning and be the best mom I can be, which is pretty damn good. And we still struggle.

We've spent so long being tested... I think we've proven we're worthy of good things. 

Maybe we need to start going to that mega church, dropping 10% of what we need to eat into the bucket, and praying to someone we can't even see to send us checks in the mail.

All those people are prospering, right? Maybe that's the key..to stop thinking & just start doing what I've been told my whole life to do. Because being a good person & working hard just isn't paying off. 

Today I'm not in the mood to count my blessings. I'm in the mood to hold them and watch TV in bed all day, then pop a few ibuprofens to soothe my sore muscles. If I had money I'd go buy a bottle of wine and drink the entire thing after they've gone to sleep, waiting for all these thoughts to go numb. 

And I happen to think that's okay. I think it's okay to have bad days..days when you don't feel like playing the happy go lucky role that for some reason everyone expects you to play. 

Life is beautiful, yes. But sometimes life is hard. Sometimes it sucks so much that you just want to crawl into bed and forget it all...drown out the noise around you and just stop thinking.

And when it's over hope to emerge with a new outlook on things...a fresh view on life, knowing that once the storm has passed everything will feel just fine yet again.



Thursday, May 17, 2012

Melons

It was either junior or senior year of high school. I can't remember exactly..because I'm too lazy to take ginko whatever in an effort to better my memory.

But I was sitting in a classroom..or the cafeteria..the location doesn't really matter. It's what happened that helped to build a lonely girl's self esteem that really matters. I overheard a guy behind me talking about boobs.

And he said something to the effect of "Vanessa's are nice, but they're not perky enough. I like 'em perky." That was heavily paraphrased...but there was talk about how nice my boobs were. I happen to be friends with this guy on facebook, so if he happens to read this (which I doubt he does..I have it on good authority that a good number of my "friends" hide me from their news feed. Probably for reasons like what I'm doing right now..writing a blog post about the perils of having giant boobs.) what I'm trying to say is "thank you".

Thank you for the self esteem boost. It didn't hurt in the slightest bit that mine weren't what you would classify as perky. But the idea of someone of the opposite sex finding anything on me "nice" was life changing.

I was a lonely, lonely girl. One whose only boyfriend was a boy she shyly held hands with in church for about a week. And she had only been on one date ever. One that ended with her in tears at a payphone calling her big sister to come pick her up because she was hopelessly lost while trying to get home after a traumatically awkward experience.

Really though, that experience in high school was when my boobs started working for me. They helped land my adorable husband. I know this for a fact because he's confirmed on several occasions that my boobs were one of the first things he noticed. I mean, my C cups were pretty magnificent back then.

But things have changed. And now they work against me. Three children and a number of pounds I'm not comfortable with divulging later and my melons have grown to epically gigantic ridiculous stupid proportions.

How epically gigantic you ask? Well, my PLP (that's platonic life partner, y'all) called me from the thrift store a week or so ago. She wanted to know my bra size because there were some pretty sizable ones up for grabs. My boobs are too big, I told her...I knew for a fact they wouldn't work. And that's when she confirmed, "Oh there's one that's REALLLLLLLLY big." Yea, still won't fit. So I did the walk of shame to my dresser, pulled out the massive purple bra in the top drawer, and told her "40G". "Oh..yea....this one's an F."

Every time my sister sees me in my bra she exclaims, "Good lord, woman! Where did those things come from?!" And that means a lot coming from her, because she's a luscious goddess with beautiful gigantic boobies. Not stupid clown boobies like I have. I mean, these are the kind of things you only see in cartoons. Or porn. Big girl porn. Which I'm not really in the market to dive into at the moment. After birthing three children it would be a challenge to even see what was going on down there. It's a mess.

But we're here to talk about my boobs, not my vag.

So in an effort to form some kind of solidarity between myself and my big breasted sisters, I would like to share with you some of the horrors of carrying around gigantic watermelons on my chest that probably weigh an average of 10-15 pounds each...minimum. Although a lot of you who read this probably won't get this, because most of my female friends happen to belong to the itty bitty titty club.

These are in no particular order, as if that matters....


  • Clothes don't fit. Seriously.
    When my brother got married I was forced against my will to be a bridesmaid. When I went to try on the dress I discovered to my horror that it was strapless. This is a big girl's worst nightmare. Fucking strapless. And here's the best part: The boobie shelf surface area was 1/3 of the size it needed to be. The line that should've sat below the girls was smack dab in the middle of them. I'd show you a picture, but I untagged all those pictures of myself on facebook and I can't see my brother's photo albums any more since he unfriended me. (Oh family....)
  • My back hurts. A lot. And pretty much all the time.
    Remember that episode of "Roseanne" where she got her boobie fat sucked out & insurance covered it? Guess what....this girl ain't got no insurance. And I've seen what those state approved plastic surgeons do to breasts.
    Did you know the have to RELOCATE YOUR NIPPLE when you have a breast reduction? Yea no. 
  • The straps on my bra totally dig into my shoulders, and pretty much everywhere they make contact with my skin. Imagine someone stabbing an exacto knife into your armpits. It's awesome and just one of the many horrors they refer to as the "underwire".
  • My bras cost more than any other article of clothing I own.
    I can only wear bras from one specific place. And they're a minimum of 50 bucks a pop. And the fuckers aren't even comfortable. But they're the only ones I can wear that will insure I can sprint across the parking lot at Target to catch my 3 year old running into traffic and not give myself a concussion and two black eyes from the blunt force of my boobs smacking me in the face.
  • They're all anyone ever looks at.
    Seriously. Don't believe me? Stuff the largest watermelons you can find into your shirt the next time you go out and watch the awkward teenage boy scanning your groceries stare at them while trying (poorly) to not be terribly obvious.
  • My children touch them. All the fucking time.
    I breastfed all three of my children. And they still have the psycho impression that even though I haven't lactated in well over 2 years they still belong to them somehow. I am no longer a cow, people. Leave them the hell alone. 
  • People judge my boobs being so big and automatically assume it's because I'm also fat.
    Listen...I had to buy my first bra years before any of my friends did. I don't know if my mom dumped extra BPA into my food every day or only fed me the milk from dairy cows who received quadruple the amount of hormones their lady friends did, but these puppies have always been there. And yea, in high school they were large C cups. But I've been suffering the wrath of G cups since I had my first kid 7 years ago. And even in times when I wasn't breastfeeding and weighed much, much less..well, they were still hanging to my belly button. 
  • Cleavage. It's there all the time, no matter what I wear.
    This gives off the impression that I'm trying to draw attention to them when, in fact, it's the exact opposite. I just lack any ability to control them.
  • It's literally impossible to sleep on my stomach. Or on my back without a bra on. I'd hate for my obituary to read "She was smothered by her own breasts in the night. Her husband and the 17 year old checker at Crest will miss them dearly."
So there you have it. A few words on the perils of having large boobies. 

If you can relate, please raise a glass and know that I'm toasting you in an effort to say "I understand". Also, if anyone who happens to run across this has a connection to spanx, a product that controls boobies would be greatly appreciated. 



"Gimme dat boobie!"