There was a time in my life when my nickname was Knox – And it wasn’t because i had money. I had boobs. Great boobs. Damned near perfect boobs.

And then life happened.

Most women, when we are young, our boobs are like toy poodles. You are always on the lookout for something to decorate them. Inexpensive bits of material that serve the same purpose as a dress on a dog. They do nothing but look cute. Bits of material that are so small and flimsy, as a woman who sews, i wouldn’t even have kept them for my ragbag. These things are all about show – Lace, sparkles, and the straps (If it has any) are made out of the thinnest, most gossamer unicorn hair. To be honest, i didn’t get to buy those for long. Somewhere around the age of 16, i went from nubbins to too-big-to-shop-for-bras-at-Woolworths. On one hand, i grew great boobs. On the other hand, bras were no longer a commodity… They required at least a JC Penney budget.

Still, it was pretty cool. I could have a bad hair day the likes of which Sideshow Bob hadn’t even seen, but if undid one more button on my blouse, most interesting parties never noticed my hair. I was still a little bummed that i didn’t have a face like a supermodel, or an ass like an aerobics instructor… But at least i had boobs. It was something.

I somehow managed, after my first child, to keep the ducks swimming above water. Probably because i was young. And because i read somewhere that wearing a bra 24/7 would keep them as upright as a the Dalai Lama. If i wasn’t in the shower, those puppies were strapped in like a firstborn in a car seat. So after i was done with my dairy cow stage, tho i was a bit bigger, i was not too much worse for wear and could still get something kind of pretty at Macy’s. Maybe not with unicorn hair straps, but at least with some lace and sparkle.

I waited nearly 10 years to have my second child. And in that time, i had grown to like the rest of me a little bit more. I guess that is why i wasn’t as concerned about keeping Mary and Margaret in their school uniforms every moment of the day. And i don’t know if it was letting them sleep without the straightjacket, or just my age… But 6 years and 2 kids into my 30s, things just weren’t like they used to be. The girls grew up.

Mary got fat, Margaret got tall, and neither of them fit into the pretty little outfits i had bought them before. At least, not without cutting off my circulation and making it look like i had 4 of them. (In spite of what men might think, 4 boobs is not a good thing.) My ego could have really used a boost, as i wasn’t liking the changes my body was going through. Mind you, this was back before we had stores like Soma. There weren’t many bra companies that made cup sizes larger than D – At least ones that didn’t cost more than my weekly grocery budget – and very few of them looked better than your average surgical supply. My poor girls owned very few party dresses.

The downfall began like this:

Remember how i said that bras in your 20s were like dressing a toy poodle? First the poodle becomes a bulldog. New mom boobs are big, but solid. Those things are like anvils. They could crush rebar if you wielded them just right.  But as your hormones morph, and you realize that a bra isn’t really necessary when you are driving your kid to school at 0630 for a field trip to the Moon Pie factory, they go from fit to fat like an aging highschool quarterback. But you ignore it. I mean, your spouse loves you for your inside, right? And he’s a grown man… He knows that his body is starting to suffer just as much.

Ladies, no. No, he doesn’t. Most men are endowed with some kind of mental magical gift where they don’t obsess over their bodies half as much as we do.

Your kids get older. You are the have-it-all-woman now. Weedlings, work, hopefully some kind of social life. And the puppies somehow became wild boars. An abstract sculpture that defies physics and logic – Basically rocks and gravel set into jello with the occasional hair sprouting out of nowhere. God is obviously a man, because no woman would have the prize for surviving motherhood be Mom Tits. You can, with some effort and a large tax refund check, find a pretty bra, but now they are uncomfortable, and you feel like you just put a tutu on a platypus. You find yourself standing naked in front of a mirror saying, “Well this is bullshit.” (You would shout it, but you just don’t have the energy.)

Life goes on. You make the best of it until somewhere in your 40s when you head out to buy bras and realize you are trying to dress billy goats. You can’t find any outfits to fit them right, and those kids are all over the place. Victoria ain’t got no more secret, and you find yourself walking into a higher end department store, finding the “fit specialist” (Who invariably looks like a prison matron from 1950s film noir) and telling her, “I need a bra that makes my boobs look like they do when i’m flat on my back with my arms stuck to my sides.” And because this feeling is universal for women of that age, she knows exactly what you mean.

If you haven’t started taking Prozac yet, now is the time.

This is also when they start talking to you about putting in small implants to take up all that space that used to be your glorious boobs and is now melted jam. Unless you are very large already, and then they tell you – I quote – “Yeah, there’s not much we can do that will work for long except cut them down and tighten them up.”

Sir, You are not an editor, and my tits are not just a magazine article.

(Ok, i am writing this, so maybe they are a magazine article of sorts… But he isn’t my editor!)

I remember reading a quote by Maya Angelou where she said that she felt, in her silver years, like her breasts were in a race to see which could reach her knees first. Woman, as always, you hold the perfect words. That quote was in my mind this morning when the incident that started this whole rant occurred.

I have a thing for man-tailored silk pajamas. Just my sleepwear of choice. But the tops never stay buttoned. I don’t know if it’s because they are silky, if the strain of containing the liquid platypuses is too much for them, or if i dream about Liam Neeson… But i go to bed with them buttoned and wake with them not. I just accept it as life. So this morning i am lying in bed, enjoying the cool sheets and the sounds of the birds coming in the window.  Sundays are awesome. Siridog crawls out from the covers (Chihuahuas burrow when they sleep) and begins her morning stretches. Usually, she plants her bony little front paws on my sternum and begins her doggie yoga. This morning, she was a little off-center.

Bony paws pinching your tits is NOT the kind of boob attention you want to start your day.

I yelped. She winced. I apologized. She licked my face… While standing on the puddle of boob that formed when i rolled to pet her.

I am ashamed to say that i F-bombed as i lifted her paws. Poor Siridog. She had no idea she had done anything wrong. So, of course, she keeps coming in for more kisses… Standing on it over and over again with those blasted bony paws – I swear, they feel like railroad spikes- Inadvertently making it worse and worse. God love her. I ended up just calling bedtime over, since i couldn’t find a way to lay that didn’t have her standing on the tit slick.

To my silver sister friends – At some point we must accept the fact that we are more than our breasts. And tho it is depressing to watch them head south for the winter and become a thin-skinned Stretch Armstrong, it is the price we have to pay for having contributed to the world. (For what it’s worth, i am told that men face the same feeling of tragedy over their testicles. But i would bet money, it doesn’t affect them half as much. We really need some of their confidence.) This is the way the universe is designed. We get wisdom and metaphysical integrity in exchange for our young bodies and physical integrity.

I am told it is a more than fair trade.

Some days, i believe it.

Unless my dog is standing on my tit puddle.