“GET IT ALL off your chest.” Strange advice to give someone readying for a double mastectomy, but my friend Ryan meant every word. “Take every bit of sadness, every hurt, every disappointment that you have ever had and stuff it in your boobs. Are you done?”
“Yes!” I promised into the phone. He persisted.
“Now go find some more pain—everything and anything you can think of—and keep stuffing it in so that it’s even fuller.”
Eyes closed, I raced through my life in reverse. Lying on the operating room table, hearing Ryan’s voice in my mind, I backtracked through the years, thinking about my family, career, friends, lovers, pets, moves, accidents, missed opportunities—all the while visually cramming them inside my breasts, well beyond their 34B-cup capacity. I did not stop…
