Boobariffic

Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I am boob obsessed.

It might have started in grade school when mine came in way too early. While other girls still looked like sticks, I looked like the Jolly Green Giant with developing boobage on my chest.

I remember how badly I hated the boobs. They were a source of embarrassment.

One time, I was playing outside with a friend. It was the summertime and hot. We were running around in shorts and no shirts. I was probably around nine years old and didn't think much about running around shirtless. The year before I had done it. My mother said, "You need to put on a shirt because you have breasts."

I had to put on a shirt and I wasn't happy. The fact that my friend didn't have to made me so mad, that I threw a ball at her really hard and gave her a black eye. Nice, huh? She didn't know why I did it.

Lest you think this friend was a sweet little thing, she thought it was funny to pretend my growing boobs were punching bags. Ouch!

Eventually I lost this friend. We were riding on the teeter totter and I purposely made her fall. Her front teeth got chipped and she looked like a vampire. Her mother wouldn't let her play with me after that. You know, I think I had anger issues as a kid. But I digress.

Anyway, the boobs were humiliating. We had to say the pledge of allegiance every morning and I didn't know where to put my hand. I didn't want to touch my boobs. It was the spot where I used to put my hand, but now there were boobs there.

Bras were a torture device straight from the middle ages as far as I was concerned. If this was growing up, I wanted none of it.

Eventually, but not fast enough for me, other people got boobs. Some girls were actually jealous of mine because I was nicely endowed. Well a 36C, not ginormous by any means.

I did hate running in phys ed class, because I didn't want anyone to see them bouncing.

When I had my first child, my boobs became something different entirely. They were food. They were a way to bond, something nobody but I could do with my child.

Then she weaned and the realization dawned that they resembled a photo shoot from National Geographic. I was only twenty-one and my boobs were all washed up!

Over the years, I lost self-consciousness about the boobs. There were too many things to worry about.

Then my oldest daughter had to comment about how much they bounced when I ran, "like a cartoon caricature."

Now I was self-conscious all over again. In cycling class when I go fast, I can feel them jiggle. I look around at other women. Some are jiggling. Some have boobs that hold perfectly still, usually nice perky boobs.

Is that the secret to boobs that don't jiggle? Is it perkiness? Is it an excellent bra? Someone tell me darn it!

I am also obsessed with other people's boobs out of gym class. If a woman is particularly large, I notice. If a woman is in her mid-forties and they still look gravity-defying, I wonder if they're real.

Do any other women out there look at other women's boobs? Am I a freak?

Don't answer that!

Does anybody else have thoughts on boobs they would like to share? Feel free.