Scars of Beauty

I've been battling my breasts since age 11. They have always been my least favorite body part. At age 11 I made a deal with God. The deal was that I would have a nice booty in exchange for my breasts. I started blossoming at age 9 and wanted to prevent the growth of massive breasts like my mother had. I stood out enough by my height alone. To be 5'5 at age 10 was mortifying and awesome, but mostly mortifying. Over night my body grew so fast that when I woke up I had some how developed a woman's body. Due to the rapid growth, my body became scarred with stretch marks on my breasts, hips, inner thighs. This also caused a great deal of insecurity for me. Only pregnant women and fat people get stretch marks, and apparently growing mutant children.

5th grade I had this little boyfriend named Steve Sansone (pretty sure he turned me off to all Italian/American men). Not sure how we got into a disagreement, but he took it to a level a cruelty. My mother was fighting cancer at the time and only had one of her breasts. He proceeded to say, "Your breasts are so ugly it looks like you had one of them chopped off, just like your mother." I hung up the phone and sobbed. Closest he ever got seeing my breasts was in a bathing suit. After that I always hated my breasts and felt self conscious about them. The few high school boyfriends I had, hardly saw them, if at all, because I felt so ashamed for not having beautiful breasts. The size never bothered me, but more the shape and the scars. My areolas seemed to be too large for my breasts, as if my breasts were suppose to be larger to fill them out.

I have this friend, who always has to find something to criticize about my body. I'd be wearing a low cut shirt and she always needed to point out which breast was bigger. I wouldn't be thinking about it at all, and honestly didn't think it was that noticeable until she brought attention to it. Looking back I know she did this out of insecurity with her own body.

Rule #3: Don't take what people say personal.

During my last year of college at Loyola, I discovered a lump in my left breast (the smaller one). I had been aware of it since high school and felt that it had grown over time. I went in to get it checked out. Based on my family history of cancer, the doctor recommended I get surgery to have the lump removed. This freaked the shit out of me. "I'm only 24, my left breast is already smaller than my right, and now it will be even smaller, in fact it will be deformed." I began thinking about getting a double mastectomy. Extreme, I know. Images of my mother in the hospital flooded back to me. Track marks all over her body, vomiting, wanting to die, the smell of not getting better. I went into this mode of wanting to do whatever I could to prevent any sort of cancer from developing in my breasts, and if that meant chopping them off and reconstructing new ones, then that's what would happen.

This was a terrible thing to be dealing with, considering I had less than a month left before graduation and my grades were already barely there. Feeling crazy and needing some advice, I contacted my favorite professor, Julia Lieblich. I told her what was going on and she thought me getting any sort of surgery, according to what the doctor said, seemed unnecessary. She did some research and found me the top breast specialist in Chicago. I made an appointment and she came with. We found out that my breasts are totally normal, and that many women have fibrocystic breasts. No need for surgery to remove anything!

After that whole ordeal, I had a new appreciation for my breasts. I realized that I had been living in a lie about my breasts. I believed Steve Sansone. I believed that I am destined to get breast cancer. I believed my breasts would kill me. I believed my breasts were ugly.

I exuded a false confidence about my body. In order for me to be real I have to love my breasts and the body I've been blessed with.

How boring would the world be if all breasts looked the same?

Every woman should have nude photos taken of her at some point in her life. I can't describe how healing it has been for me. My body is art. My body is beautiful.

It's easy to get caught up in what the media and society deem as sexy or beautiful. We have to remember that there is a whole other world outside of media and society. Beauty is not something you see. Beauty is a feeling, an experience, an opening of capillaries, a spiritual orgasm. Beauty is truth and cannot be denied.

(All photos taken by Balthazar)

P.S. I love my booty