Just Melanie

When I was a kid, each year in mid-summer, a bunch of boxes would arrive at our house and us girls would get excited. Once opened, it would reveal shirts, jeans, dresses, skirts, pajamas, jackets and coats. It was hand-me-down day — as our neighbors, the Beesons, would bring over the items their three girls had outgrown over the past year.
The Beeson girls were older than all of us — and me being the oldest of our particular brood, well, I had the most potential of fitting into whatever they sent over.
It was like Christmas — all this “gently used” clothing, that would smartly wardrobe me through the school year and then some.
I’m not sure how old I was at the time — but I’ll never forget the moment. As I rooted through the clothes, along with my mother, I saw her grab a white item from a box and hold it in her hand. And then I heard the words of doom.
“You know, Melanie, you could probably start wearing these,” she said as the horrific event arrived.
I looked. And there, in her hand, were a few training bras.
She couldn’t be serious, I thought. A bra? Huh? First of all, I was so tomboyish I don’t think I even realized I was female at all. Plus bras were for grown-ups — I hardly fit the bill. And there was the issue that to wear a bra, you well, frankly, have to have something to put in it, and I certainly did not.
Yet, Mom gently said it was probably time for me to start getting used to it, and I should just try them on.
I was so embarrassed I could have died. I snatched up the under-garments and stuck them in the sleeve of a flannel shirt. And that shirt, I buried in the bottom back corner of my closet. As I did so, I got another glimpse of those awful white things — “they really look like slings,” I thought.
Even though they were buried, hidden from reality in that closet, it was like they were burning a hole through the wall. They wanted out, they wanted on me. I knew that eventually, I would have to come to terms with the fact I was growing up and they were permanently in my life.
I’m not sure if it’s the harsh fact that you are changing into an adult, or because you’re changing as a person, period. Either way, it was harsh reality.
Finally, came the day. I knew I could no longer put it off — and I tightly locked the bedroom door. I may have even put a chair up against the knob, I don’t know. I put the darn thing on — after I figured out how it worked. I thought I’d dislocate a shoulder as I maneuvered my way into the sling-thing and found a way to hook it.
And then I stared at myself in the mirror, praying to God that no one would notice. After all, I was used to being around boys — my brothers, the kids in the neighborhood. And there was my dad, the giant kidder — I just knew that if he realized it, he’d tease me until the end of time.
With a slow, slow turn of the knob and a deep breath (despite the tightness surrounding my tiny little chest), I opened the door because I knew I couldn’t stay in that room forever — with my Holly Hobby wall decorations and stuffed animals on the bunk bed. It was time to go out and be “a woman.”
The first thing I realized, with that sling in place, was how hot it was. I felt like it was a piece of armor, stuck to my body, firmly holding into place things that weren’t going to go anywhere anyhow. As we worked outside, I could feel the sling pinching and prodding and holding back my lungs. How ironic it would affect my lungs, seeing how the only thing my chest was really good for at that point, anyway, was to house my organs.
That night, as we sat at the supper table, I quietly ate my food, hoping that no one would say anything — or look at me strangely. I stealthily watched my shoulders, terrified a strap would escape into visibility from my tank top. No one said a word about the sling. They passed the potatoes, Dad watched the news, the boys hit each other and Mom mopped up the stuff flying from the high chair.
To them, the world was exactly the same as it had been that morning — but to me, everything was different. I had crossed the line from little kid to “young woman” (as my mom called it) — there was no turning back. I was caught in a sling of heat, embarrassment, torture, mortification and the unknown. I was stifled as much by its implications as the tight fabric.
If you’ve ever worn a bra, you know it makes you sweat in ways (and places) you never before imagined — and the greatest relief (especially after doing physical labor) is to frankly get rid of it. And so began my relationship with the invention I’ve grown to abhor.
As I’ve written in the past, there’s been days where even “the perfect bra” has been stifling, choking and just plain unruly. With sweat running down my back, I’ve squirmed, yanked, pulled and readjusted, simply trying to find a little relief.
Maybe that’s what I was so upset about, back when I was a “young lady.” It wasn’t about leaving behind my childhood, after all — it was foreshadowing of my hatred of the thing, in that first summer with the sling.