Are Your Breasts Real?

Mechanical Breasts...by ~cruelcouture

This may surprise you but I actually appreciate when someone asks me this question because to me it means that they aren't willing to speculate or gossip but respect me enough to ask me directly. I usually respond with something like, "Yes, my breasts are real and so are the saline implants I have inside them." What is "real" anyway? And I'm not simply asking that question as a Matrix fan, I really want to know what real means to you. Do my breasts define how genuine of a person I am? 

Once I'm asked this question I soon begin to wonder if women who have had to have breast reconstruction due to fighting breast cancer get asked the same question and what it must be like for the person asking to hear that this woman has implants because she went through the trauma of losing her breasts to cancer. I mean, fighting the trauma of breast cancer is something everyone can get behind, support fighting, and declare as a trauma that needs to be dealt with but what about those of us who have known traumas that are quieter than breast cancer? Trauma is anything that overwhelms our system whether emotionally, physically, psychologically, etc. so who's to say that one trauma is more valid to get treatment than another? Now in NO WAY am I belittling dis/ease or illness such as cancer, I have lost loved ones to cancer. Cancer is a terrible disease and I am simply using it as an example of how our society can be selective about what traumas it rallies around. Do we judge women differently for choosing to get reconstructive surgery or not when they have experienced any kind of physical trauma?

I felt deformed after I breastfed my infant for 10 months. I felt deformed and struggled with feelings of shame and inner conflict wondering if it was worse to be what others would view as vain or even "slutty" by getting implants or to just live my life struggling to feel good about my body and wearing the scars of motherhood proudly because I knew that this would be a life long struggle... You see, when I was a little girl I was in an accident that had mutilated my body in a way that made doctors turn away and refuse to treat me for eight years so all through puberty I felt deformed and ugly. No one could see my scars or the damage from the accident but the scars were there, externally and internally so my puberty was riddled with this trauma defining me along with being a general outcast for being "ugly", "skinny like an Ethiopian", "weird", "nerdy", "hairy", having "four eyes", and just plain different for reasons I don't need to list.

I was just getting comfortable with my body as I awakened as a woman for the first few months of marriage before finding out I was pregnant seven months into my marriage. After breastfeeding my infant for 10 wonderful months I stood in the mirror looking at these empty and useless bags hanging on my chest at the age of 21... These empty sacks looking like week old party balloons no one took down off the wall when the party was over, I was right back in my childhood all over again and nothing anyone else would say to reassure me helped.

When my son was seven I finally was brave enough to get breast augmentation and I began to feel like myself again. It's alright if you don't understand why this was so important to me, I don't need you to understand. What I do want and the reason I am bringing this up is because breasts have been in the news a lot lately, or at least, I have been hyper-aware of it lately. Breasts, (on women anyway), are commonly seen as a definition of how sexually proficient a woman may be and I can say from experience, if a woman isn't confident in her breasts it may have an affect on her sexual satisfaction at no fault of her partner, (although partners are frequently blamed, I believe women ultimately hold the power and control over their orgasm but that subject is for later).

My next blog will have some examples/comparisons to demonstrate how revered breasts are in our culture along with why I wonder if this power is a "good" thing, a "bad" thing, or something that has as much value as we give it as individuals and society. Follow this blog or subscribe anonymously by email to see the examples and join the discussion as it's posted. In the meantime, ponder how important other women's breasts are to you, how often you have labeled or judged breasts and why. And please feel free to share your opinions on why you think breasts are so important to our culture in the comment section below.

Breastsby ~shadylady91

There is either Fear or Love

We can live in fear or we can live in love. Which will you choose for 2013?

You're Perfect

lust by ~4ewerFairy - deviantart.com

"You're Perfect" 

There was a time when my skin crawled hearing that phrase. I was used to hearing it from men that barely knew me with the goal of conquering me in some way and believed that I would be gullible or desperate enough to swoon; or even worse, the words would come to me from a man who didn't love me the way I loved him but would text those words to me only when filled with desire and longing for me for a fleeting moment but would never actually making me feel that way in person, always leaving me in want. My resistance to hearing these two words directed to me was compounded by years in a marriage filled with expectations that were impossible for me to live up to and the consequences of my inadequacies.

I'm apart from the man I love right now, a good man...
a man that loves me back...
a man that doesn't string me along or punish me when I'm human...
a man that knows when to love me and just how much...
a man that knows when to make love to me and how hard...
a man that has known me for over a year; has seen me at my worst, my best...
a man that knows my strengths, my challenges, and my darkest secrets and loves me anyway.

This man sent me a text tonight and it said, "You're Perfect". For the first time I saw those two words from a man who doesn't worship me, he doesn't put me on a pedestal, he doesn't put expectations on me, he just loves me and waited over a year to say, "You're Perfect" to me and for the first time I truly felt it... Perfect.

Being Happy and Feeling Successful

Recently I wrote the articles, If You Want Positive Change, Begin With Gratitude and 10 Tips to Happiness on Examiner.com.  In the above video I wanted to share some of my personal experience with the results of having the awareness I discussed in my articles and using the tips I name as a means to begin living the life I know I deserve.

Please feel free to share your own lessons and tips!

My Mom

My Mom at 16

For Examiner.com I had to write a Mother's Day article under their guidelines and I am beginning to realize that I have a lot of writing to do and a lot of ideas but the writing that no one sees is my best writing so I save it... I'm just not sure what for yet.

On this Mother's Day I find myself alone.  Circumstances have me separated not only from my own mother but from my son as well and the pain of not seeing him is so great I'm not prepared to write about that so instead I am choosing to write about my own mother.  My mother and I have had our differences, a novel's worth to be sure but the older I get and the more time I spend apart from my own child the more I understand and appreciate her.  It breaks my heart to think of all the times her and I were at odds when really all she wanted was what she believed to be what's best for me.  Her passion and intensity were always out of love and the older I get and the more I see the same passion and intensity in me, the more I understand it.  Today I want to list my favorite things about my mother, the things that I believe helped shape me into who I am today and I don't think I'm half bad.

My mother is an artist.  I do not use the word "artist" lightly.  My mother is creating no matter what she is doing.  Never have I seen her spend any extended amount of time just seated without something in her hands.  I grew up with art books sprawled out on the floor full of images of the human anatomy or masterpieces by all the great artists throughout history.  As I got older she taught me how to model as she used me multiple times for some piece she was currently working on.  My mother has successfully accomplished virtually every medium of art there is from stained glass, to oil painting, to sculpture.  She drove herself to learn everything and when she knew she had perfected it she taught herself something new and hasn't stopped to this day.  Her ability to self-teach landed her a position teaching sculpture for a college.  There was a time when I compared myself to her and thought of myself too inadequate to try anything even though she urged me to do so and praised every creative effort I ever made.  Now I have embraced writing as my personal medium so as not to compare myself to her, have my own individuality and use her example of dedication to keep improving my craft.

My mother kept life interesting.  I grew up with some new interest my parents were into all the time.  They raised Pit Bulls when I was a baby and some of my favorite baby pictures are me lying on top of one with a bottle.  We raised Yorkies when I got older.  They became falconers and for years we had Red-Tail Hawks, Harris Hawks, or Kestrels as part of our family.  This was in between all the other pets we owned from rodents to cats and birds.  I have often wondered just how much having all these interests in our lives enriched mine and my little brother's lives even now.

My mother is strong and she believes in me.  My mother has such a strong will that I'm not even sure she realizes how powerful it is.  Her ability to be in tune with everything all the time made her appear to be aloof to those who don't really know her.  Even though I could see how she could be misunderstood I knew better.  She has a drive that is so strong and so intense that it keeps her constantly yearning to learn and better herself.  She is so in tune with everything around her that she can assess a situation almost instantly leaving little need for conversation.  I see myself becoming more and more like this as well and work hard at not being as misunderstood as my mother always was because times have changed and I had to live single during years she was still happily married in her own life, which brings me to my next point...

My mother is devoted.  No matter what issues my parents ever faced, there was never a question of my mother's devotion and loyalty to my father.  Her strength of conviction may be misunderstood but there was never mistaking how in love with my father she was.  As I grew up I watched her dote on him and comfortably express how completely in love and fulfilled she was by him.  Sometimes it would be uncomfortable for us kids but now I see how she felt.  She was brave enough to push through any ideas others may have had on how to love or how to show it and she was completely herself with my father.  She just loved him.  Recently she expressed her love for him to me in private in a way I never thought possible coming from her.  I realized that she had also worked hard at keeping the mother/daughter relationship very clear and she rarely ever opened up but in that moment, I felt closer to her.  She was honest with me.  She trusted me with a vulnerability I had never seen in her before and I actually respected her even more for doing so.

Mother's Day doesn't have the same meaning for her that it does for most people so I am careful about how I express myself with her, but here I can tell her just what she means to me.  I do my best every day to live up to the example she set as a woman and a mother and learn from her mistakes exactly the way she would want me to.  She may not agree on my choices but I know with absolute certainty that she feels pain whenever I do and she loves and continues to have faith in me.  I hope someday she'll understand just how much I do appreciate her.  My mother's beauty will always remain unmatched in my eyes.

For My More Personal Side...

I adore Tumblr.  Tumblr is like Instagram on crack.  Images, videos, and quotes are the theme and it's quiet there.  Because of my business, I try to utilize every major Social Media and Blog site so I signed up for Tumblr and post my most personal images and blogs there.  You are invited to follow me on Tumblr and I look forward to following you back!  Click here: Diary of a Wandering Muse

Thank you!

Not All Birthdays Are Happy

A picture by my son.

Lately I have thought a lot about people from my past. Some people I was absolutely sure would never leave my side because they were there whenever times got tough. No matter what, I could count on them. Then I get to a place in my life where I have less and less to complain about... At least when it comes to the opposite sex, and my friends seem to have disappeared. I give up after so many unanswered texts, emails, etc.
Granted, I know I've changed a lot. I'm realizing that I'm a lot more of an introvert than I ever previously thought, (could have to do with being a Rabbit too). Being newly single for the first time since I was a teenager meant I had a lot of growing and learning to do in a very short amount of time. I drove MYSELF crazy so I can't imagine how I must have sounded or appeared to others. Then I met a man who understood me and made me feel better about myself in a way I couldn't have anticipated. I'm slowly learning how to slow down and prioritize my life better. I'm overwhelmed by having been in survival mode for so long in order to do what I choose to with my life instead of having someone else delegating what I should be doing but it has been worth it.

Maybe some people just get tired of seeing me spinning my wheels and need to separate themselves from me. Maybe the fact that I remain positive and determined no matter what my hardship is annoying. Maybe I'm not angry enough anymore and refuse to exhaust my energy on anything that doesn't produce GOOD.  Maybe I've changed more than I realize. Maybe the fact that I believe in accountability and refuse to blame or criticize is frustrating. I keep trying to break unhealthy cycles and I suppose that means I won't connect with the same people anymore.

This entire process has left me feeling much lonelier than I felt around my last Birthday. This is in no way a reflection on my personal relationship. I had actually never felt truly lonely except for when I was in a relationship with someone who didn't truly love me. I loved being single and I believed that if I just happened to fall in love that wouldn't affect my friendships as deeply as it has. Maybe it's assumed that if you were visiting with me I would only gush about my beau but honestly, I feel so good and comfortable with where I'm at I no longer feel the need to go on and on about any of my current endeavors as if I'm trying to make sense of it or validate anything.... Except, of course, for the shift in old friendships... That was unexpected and for months I've been trying to make sense of it. I bring it up so much to my partner that I actually asked him if it was getting old and he said, "No! It's healthy to want a life and relationships outside of this one!"

I suppose that since my Birthday is coming up I'm going to reserve the right to finally articulate the hurt in my heart as I move forward with all my current endeavors. People will respond if and when they want to and I can't make it about me so much! *Sheesh!* So for my Birthday I wanted to say this... But mostly to see my son. I miss him desperately. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!