My College Essay about Bras

Bras changed my life. I’d always wanted to wear one, just to feel like a Woman with a capital ‘w,’ and I was ready to bring about this grand metamorphosis of estrogen that would tear me apart and put me back together with flesh and blood and complaining of back pain and turning the washing machine on delicates and– wait, that’s it? A B-cup?

I had only gotten A’s my entire life, my name started with an A, A came first: I knew that. But I wanted the letter D to be in my life for the first time that I could remember. I prayed at the altar of Victoria Secret, for the alphabet beyond the first three letters to reform me in the eyes of femininity. I’d always been an athlete with broad shoulders and a flat chest thanks to innumerable hours spent in the pool, and I yearned to match the girls in the locker room that would smugly mention their mature relationship to the alphabet. This dream eluded me completely up until the year I turned 16, only the response exceeded my preference.

Time had led to my separation from swim, polycystic ovaries drew me closer to imbalances in estrogen and testosterone, and quarantine left me idle. Just 16 years old and my cup size began to grow unprecedently.

Flash forward and I am now a very different weight than I had been for most of my adolescence, as that’s just how growing up goes. Funnily enough, I also now wear a D cup. The beginning was mostly terrible. Most of my old clothes clung too tight and rejected my newfound curves. The sizes I had once patronized now led me to question the sanctity of my rounded shoulders and the softness of my limbs.

Up until recently, I felt alien, like my presence in this world was overflowing and gurgling over the confines of my clothes until a bra’s only purpose was to remind me that I was not the same person, the same body I had once been. I resented my young self for her alphabet dreams, I resented myself for letting change happen, I resented the world for making me resentful. And yet a relieving leak metastasized slowly in the dark recesses of my resentment as I looked into my eyes and saw the body I’d always had approaching what it would always be: an adult. I was no longer a child, and my body was an accurate (perhaps beautiful?) reflection of my growth. I felt that I had not only achieved my dream of a D cup, but I was also more interesting, more intelligent, more open, more compassionate, more, more, more. I was more than I had been.

My epiphany had brought me to the divine knave of elaborate skylights and salted pretzels: the mall. I bought new clothes that accepted my body like a lifelong friend, only my journey wasn’t complete— I had to return to my altar and pray for an answer. And so, I purchased new bras. Some were pink like my lips and my stretch marks, some had roses that danced across my shoulders in duets with my freckles, some were silk that matched the softness of my limbs. In these patterns and fabrics, I found the support I’d been longing for my entire life cinched between two clasps. All at once, I felt at ease. My body is now and forever the subject of my worship no matter its changes. I welcome change, for I know that beyond the tides of the present, a new bra awaits.