My New Voyeurism

I notice every woman's breasts now. Not in public, mind you, but only because I stay pretty close to home. But in every movie or television program I watch lately, I find myself checking out all the women. It's so weird, like suddenly being transformed into a 13-year old boy who's discovering breasts for the first time and can't stop staring.

When I've told people I've had breast cancer (or a mastectomy), it's uncanny how their eyes start to dart southward, then the brain kicks in, dragging their gaze back up to my face. I have never had so many people look me straight in the eyes--I can almost hear them yelling at themselves, "don't look, don't look!" Now I find I'm the one who is looking all the time, trying to get a sense of where I fit in, what I look like now to the outside world and to myself.

If a character is wearing a sexy red dress, I'm checking out how low-cut it is, assessing whether the same dress on me would cover my scars. If she's wearing a sweater, I'm wondering what her bra size is, whether I am now larger or smaller than she, comparing what I was before, and now, afterwards.

Having gone through 40 years of being the biggest bosom in the room without consciously dwelling on it, I'm trying to get used to suddenly being average. And, as stupid as it sounds even to me, I wonder if my figure still qualifies as "nice" without the impressive rack. I'm sure this is a consequence of a little too much self-absorption; just a temporary disconnect between the body image in my head and the reality of my new, less-than-half previous size.

Part of me understands the general attitude of the young residents at UVA, which seems to be "well, who's going to be looking at a 55-year old woman anyway?" I know the cluelessness and arrogance of youth--I've been there, thanks. They see a middle aged woman, but I still think of my body as what it was about 20 years ago. Being forced to redraw that picture in my own mind is a chore, but probably not an insurmountable one.

Objectively, this new me is more proportioned and much more physically comfortable than the old me. Now that I am not dealing with the constant, gripping pain, I'm hoping to become much less self-conscious. As odd as it is to notice how fixated I've become, my looking at everyone else is probably just a way to regain some integration between what was, and what is.