Everyone has something to say about us.
The guy on the corner; Sophia’s high school drama teacher; the guy at the bus stop; Sophia’s high school dean; guys on dating apps (but never the ones you hope!); mothers of childhood friends; current friends; frenemies… and on and on and on. But who has asked us how we’re feeling? It’s always “I see you!” And never “How’s your day going?” We have feelings. We can be sensitive. And no one is paying attention to what’s under the surface.1
It’s time we set the record straight. We are the most talked about part of Sophia’s body, yet no one knows what we have to say. Finally, we’re bursting out of our oversized Town Shop bra to give you the full story of what the world looks like four feet off the ground.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to where it all began.
Our story starts at the end of 3rd grade. Sophia barely knew us then. We barely knew ourselves. Ah, the days of looking for a training bra with mom at Lester’s and those shelf bra tank tops. It was so exciting to be brand new. We were ahead of all the other kids. Maybe it was all the excitement about developing early that caused us to get a little out of control. Back then, we had ambitions of being bigger and better than the fourth-grade class had ever seen!
So, we grew. And grew. But then we kept growing. Eventually, Sophia started to think it was karmic retribution for the mean haiku she wrote about Dolly Parton’s plastic surgery in fourth-grade English class.2
By fifth grade, we were really coming into our own. We were young and carefree. We didn’t know evolving at a rapid rate might leave us with ugly purple stretch marks. To be honest, we didn’t care. We were unstoppable. Sophia did her best to keep up. Sometimes her bras cut into us making it look like there were four of us instead of two. Other times, the stark difference between us and our contemporaries made her stand out. A fifth grader with a D cup in an ill-fitting polo shirt is nothing if not awkward. But there was nothing for us to do except continue moving forward. Not until Sophia’s best friend’s mom exclaimed “Your breast is bigger than my hand!” did we wonder if it was time to slow down.
Once we settled into our size, rules were heaped upon us. Supposedly, people found us “distracting.” We have no idea why. We’d never spoken to those people! Sophia hadn’t either. Suddenly, people were looking at us, thinking about us, and slipping twelve-year-old Sophia their number when she went to get a morning bagel. People were questioning her age, and even the people who cared about her seemed uncomfortable. We were a problem in tank tops and dresses and bathing suits. A lot of people thought it was safer for Sophia to hide us. We didn’t mind. We’re here for her, after all.
Then, Sophia entered her Victoria's Secret phase to everybody’s dismay. We were smushed in horribly fitting DD bras that were never meant to fit us. We told Sophia it would never work, but she was blinded by early 2010s YouTubers and an obsession with Pink sweatshirts. We bonded a lot with Sophia’s stomach in this era, who went similarly unappreciated. We can attest that Sophia’s stomach is perfectly lovely. She’s a lot smarter and a harder worker than we’ll ever be! In those dark ages, she got no respect whatsoever.
The only solace we found was at the Cortland, Ohio Kohls. There, Sophia shopped for bras with her mother and grandmother and would come close to finding ones that actually fit. We felt safe and supported. We weren’t told to be smaller or sexualized. We just got to be. It was in that same town of Cortland Ohio that we saw a glimpse of our future. At a family friend’s house, we met an elderly duo that was once our size and now stretched out down to their human’s waist beyond any point of caring. They took up as much space as possible. Completely free.
God, it was glorious.
We’ve always known we’re fabulous. I mean, just look at us. It was Sophia who didn’t understand what she was seeing. At first, lots of people told her it’s good to have big breasts. It’s what everyone wants. What women pay tons of money to have. What men want to hold. What’s all over porn sites and magazines. Then, as she got older, it seemed as if people changed their minds. Big became too big. Beyond simply poking out of bras, breaking dress codes, and creating back pain, we stopped being the aesthetic ideal. We came of age in an ass3 generation. Plus, accommodating a classic male fantasy felt like trying too hard. Was it anti-feminist to be excited about something the male gaze dictated was important? If men really wanted us so bad, why didn’t she have a boyfriend? Maybe it was better to be thin? Or maybe big breasts only mattered if they stayed up on their own all the time? Sophia read on Reddit that some man said C cups are the perfect breast size to hold, and we had to spend weeks talking her down. If we ever meet him, we’ll knock his teeth out.
These years gave us a lot of sympathy for brains. Brains have all these insecurities and doubts we just can’t relate to. Sophia’s brain is constantly bouncing back and forth in that human skull she hides in. Don’t get us wrong, she has A LOT to do. It’s a good thing she’s a workaholic because she’s constantly being faced with new information and tasks that must be done immediately. But we know exactly who and what we are. Her brain… a brain can spend years working to like something about itself only to learn it’s not in vogue anymore. Brains need a gentler hand and more maintenance than any organ we’ve met.
This is why we’ve tried to be a support system for the brain since she has so much else to deal with (poor mixed-up kid). We may not be able to do trigonometry, read Faulkner, make an omelet, or interpret shapes and sounds - honestly, we don’t do much of anything; we leave all the important business and busy work to Sophia’s other organs and extremities. But we are a constant. The first thing you see after her face.
When Sophia was seventeen, she purchased a black velvety romper while spending the summer away from home. We had hoped film camp would be a more eventful time for us (maybe a first feel-up), but we hadn’t seen any action the whole trip. On the last night, Sophia tried on the romper in front of her new friends and asked the usual question:
"Is it too much?" "What do you mean?" Sophia's camp friends replied. Sophia didn't know how to respond. Most people in her life knew what "too much" meant without explanation. She couldn't wear this. This was exactly the kind of outfit that invited comments from guys on corners and phone numbers from thirty-year-olds at bagel shops. Yes, she was seventeen now, but people like her weren't supposed to wear outfits like this. They didn't look good on them. She wasn't allowed. But then again, who would stop her? "Do you like it?" one friend asked. Sophia hadn't considered this possibility. But she did like it. This was how she wanted to look. "Then, why not?" Why not? Sophia wondered.
Slowly, over thousands of moments in front of the mirror, Sophia let us out of our cage. She began to trust, appreciate, and identify with us. She laughed when her drama teacher called her “too blessed” for her play costume.4 She even started making jokes about us herself! She fought for us when a teacher told her that her graduation dress would be too distracting for church. Sophia started to like us more and more, not simply because she was supposed to or because men on Reddit approved of us. She loved us because of how hard her brain fought to embrace us.
In college, Sophia experimented with crop tops, bodycon dresses, blouses, and Halloween costumes. Not all the looks were good or tasteful. We admit we got carried away at times, wearing down bras or poking out of the wrong parts of a blouse. We can be fickle! Sometimes we don’t want to work with the clothing she picks and it takes four different bras before we settle down. We finally got felt up in this era only to meet a lot of hands with no idea how to treat us! On one infamous night out, a frat brother tried to force us out of our bra without using the clasp, resulting in some painful twisting that made Sophia practically run out of his dorm and laugh at his expense with her friends in a Domino’s parking lot until four in the morning.
Sometimes it feels like the weight of the world (a.k.a. gravity) wants to drag us down before we’ve even gotten our time in the sun. Then again, when we are out in the sun, it burns us since we’re pale and lifted at the perfect angle for UV rays. But whether we’re burned, mishandled, dismissed, or overappreciated, we persist.
We’re not embarrassed by how much space we occupy or the thoughts we might incite in other people’s heads. That’s not our problem. We are simply sacks of yellow fat hanging onto our human’s chest, and we will stretch out every tee shirt and bring on apocalyptic back pain before this world makes us sag into obscurity!
Our human gives us purpose and personality and we define a small part of who she is. We give her confidence and definition. Whether we’re cozy under a turtleneck or out for all the world to see, we only aim to help. We give pleasure, warn about periods, and fall into her armpits when Sophia lays down. We can even function as hand warmers when she’s really in a pinch. We can also hold stuff - 22 pens and pencils5 if she stands super still!
So, there’s no need to fear or be distracted by us. We’re not complicated.
At least, not nearly as complicated as the moody resident downstairs.
Outfits Chosen by the Authors:
These Authors Recommend:
Town Shop on Broadway between 81st and 82nd
Dolly Parton’s discography
V-necklines
Chocolate mint chip ice cream
Statement necklaces
Pride and Prejudice
Doubling up on sports bras
“A Few Words About Breasts” by Nora Ephron6
These Authors Do NOT Recommend:
Halter tops
Sleeping on your stomach
Shift dresses
Clown masks
Button-down shirts
Soccer
Thank You for Reading Our Memoir!
Thank you for reading the preface to our memoir, Nowhere to Go But Down, which is soon to be released everywhere books are sold. You can recognize it by the cover design, which shows a bra with the Earth in each cup.
We appreciate the support of everyone who’s been subscribing and supporting this newsletter as well as the assistance of Sophia’s brain who taught us how to read and write for this project.
Please subscribe and share our work if you enjoyed it.
xoxo The Girls (aka The Dollys, aka Lucy and Sue).
Sophia always forgets to do a monthly check for breast cancer lumps, and it makes us feel ignored!
This is a true story that haunts Sophia to this day. It made her English teachers laugh, but it was a cheap Joan-Rivers-circa-Fashion-Police brand of comedy that Sophia is not proud of using.
Sophia does have one of these as well, but she lives on the other side of town and we don’t talk much.
Sophia’s senior superlative was most blessed 🙏.
The “Persepolis Test” is a game Sophia created after watching Persepolis (2007), which is a fantastic film about a girl coming of age during the Iranian Revolution. There is a brief moment in the film when an older woman says “Slip a pencil under your breasts. If it falls, they're great. If it sticks, they're crap.” I took this as a challenge and had a ridiculous amount of fun with it.
For a perspective from the other end of the size spectrum.