agonizing asymmetry

After many hours of scrolling through “solutions” on how to “fix” my chest, I turned to praying to my dead grandmother. No joke. If anyone could do it, she could.

Each night, I would pray and pray that one day, I would wake up and be normal. 

Every morning, I would take off my pajamas, hoping to find beautiful symmetry. 

I lost hope in her after a few weeks. 

Sometimes, I would try again, because, maybe she didn’t hear me? Unlikely. 

I’m not that old, but I am old enough to remember when the internet was different. Smaller, even. My first memory with my asymmetrical chest begins in the seventh grade. I remember ferociously Googling ‘asymmetrical breasts.”  Fuck, even now when you Google it, you’ll see the following:

1. Snake oil bullshit that will “magically make you even”

2. Plastic surgery advertisements

3. Scary and overwhelming medical definitions, describing your horror in cold detail

Is this helpful? No. Did I read well past the first page of websites listed? Absolutely. 

I searched, and searched, and SEARCHED, looking for the answer to my obnoxious fucking problem: The A and C breasts hanging on my chest that tormented my adolescence. 

I was standing in Barnes & Noble, glossing over the Young Adult spines, waiting for one to break free.

Suddenly, I realized the story I so desperately wanted to hear was my own. I wanted to, for the first time in my life, feel validated on the emotional trauma that I have been through. That story, I have found, does. not. exist.