Pretty

My favorite moment in Firefly comes in Heart of Gold.

Don't get me wrong, I think Our Mrs. Reynolds is the best episode, hands down. It's funny, it's smart, it has Christina Hendricks, but my favorite moment in the entire show, the moment I find most relatable, comes during a conversation Kaylee and Wash have.

Kaylee: Everyone's got somebody. Wash, tell me I'm pretty.
Wash: Were I unwed, I would take you in a manly fashion.
Kaylee: 'Cause I'm pretty?
Wash: 'Cause you're pretty.

When I first watched this episode with my roommate Maggie (who introduced me to Firefly) I made her rewind that particular bit of dialogue about five times. It became shorthand for us, the thing I would text here when I was feeling fat or ugly or was on my way to a date and need a confidence booster.

Wash, tell me I'm pretty. 

***

Over the weekend, I had an hour long conversation with a friend about boobs.

I fall into the category of women who are euphemistically called "busty." Busty would be a great word if we still all wore corsets and clothing made to, you know, make the most out of a large chest, but in a world where I can literally spend an entire eight hour day looking for a button down shirt that both buttons up over my chest and doesn't look like I'm wearing a circus tent, I prefer the truth. 

I have enormous boobs. 

***

Back in December, I wrote a post about having beautiful friends and what that does to a woman over time. And it was popular. People liked it and what it said and the way it was written. But, as I do with this blog, when I told a truth, I only told half of it. Here's the rest. 

There is no part of my body I have not thought "Huh I could use (insert cosmetic surgery)" about. 

Teeth Invisaligned? Where can I sign up? Jaw reset so it stop clicking and I actually have a chin? I could do food through a straw for a few weeks. Scars from bike accidents and teenage acne removed? As long as it doesn't leave more scars, yeah, let's go. 

***

While writing this post I have, no fewer than eight times, paused to consider deleting the whole damn thing. Because I'm not trawling for sympathy ohmygodkellyyou'retotallybeautiful. (Ew.) But moreso because I hate admitting that the one thing I'd change about myself is my looks. And it's true. If I had two buttons sitting in front of me, one that would increase my IQ 25% and one that would make me 25% more beautiful, most days I would push the button to make me more beautiful. 

It seems I've already got the attendant shallowness down. 

***

When I was in college, my roommate Krista used to give me advice before I went to parties. 

Just fake it, Kel. 

Fake being comfortable in a large group of people. Fake the ability to talk to strangers. Fake being the chatty, outgoing person that you want to be. Fake confidence and eventually you'll have it. 

It is, as I discovered, pretty standard advice to people going into socially uncomfortable situations or job interviews. Fake confidence for long enough and you'll eventually have it. 

I am really fucking good at faking it. 

I can make offhanded comments Oh, it must be so hard to be around a woman who's bright and beautiful and funny fairly frequently. It seems to work. Or it seems to work in groups. But the second someone pulls out a camera, I instinctively wince and think "I will be untagging this picture on Facebook" or "Oh, God, I need to shift around so no one can see my chins!" Or "Shit, a picture at breakfast? What the hell is the matter with you!? Can't you see I'm not wearing a bra?" On one very memorable occasion, I got into bed with a guy I had been seeing still wearing my bra. Have you ever tried to sleep in an underwire bra? Probably not. You know why? It's really fucking uncomfortable and no woman in her right mind who is dating someone will do it. 

And, somehow, those aren't even my low points. When I'm home alone I only look in the mirror when absolutely necessary. I realized recently that my medicine cabinet is almost always open so that I don't have to look in the mirror until I'm actually ready to do it, until I've . . . I don't know screwed up the courage to do it or something ridiculous. 

Just fake it, Kel.

***

I hate my chest with all of the intensity of a star going super-nova. 

I have very few good reasons for hating it so much. Yeah, a big chest makes buying clothes that fit sort of tricky, but I don't have any back problems. My boobs don't make it difficult to go running or biking or do any of the things that I enjoy doing. I just don't like them because I just don't like them. They're not trying their best. They're not working hard to ensure that we're a package deal. Nope, they're just there, apparently doing their best to undermine all the work my brain and my personality and my intellect are doing.

The thing that frustrates me the most about my boobs, about my body. the thing that makes me (yes, occassionally, so sue me) hate it beyond reason is the fact that the genetic lot I got stuck with is just that: the genetic lot I got stuck with. I'm always going to be five-foot-three-and-three-quarters. My thighs are always going to touch. My hair is always going to look like a madwoman's and I will never, never in my life learn how to flip it seductively. 

I'm comfortable enough with myself intellectually to know that if I don't know something I can always go out and learn it. And, yeah, I'll never understand complex mathematics, but I write well and I can think through arguments, and I have a weird propensity to remember things I've been told in the form of a narrative. I can't raise my IQ, true, but I can fake convincingly enough that I manage to believe it myself. 

Our hour long conversation about boobs isn't really about boobs as much as it's about breast reduction surgery. About the pros and cons of losing two pounds on each side of your chest (believe me, they're mostly pros.) Really, it's about whether or not with a smaller, different, better body part I'll actually be happier.

The answer is, of course, no. My insecurities, my desire to be pretty have very little to do with with my actual component body parts or even the whole that they make up. Just like losing weight, buying new clothes, getting a new hair cut, etc ad nauseam are never going to make me stop saying Wash, tell me I'm pretty.