Ain't Got No TBone*

Another TBoy mate of whom I am most fond is having his top surgery tomorrow. And every time I think of this (which is quite often this last week or so) two things happen: I have a sudden and quite violent urge to cry and my breasts ache and tingle with milky letdown feeling. These reactions began quite unconsciously, my body responding before my mind could even begin to process what was going on. Trying to work out what my body knows that my mind doesn't, I come up with a list of possibile oxytocin motivators:

* I am happy for him, and can already see his smile on the first binder-less day.
* I am proud of him, as I am with all of my friends who consistently battle to create themselves in their own image.
* I am jealous of him, for the same reasons that I am proud of him. I do not know that I am this brave, or ever can be.
* I am hurting for him, knowing that the pain will be great.
* I feel a strange yearning or regret or ???, knowing that the further he moves towards his body, the further he moves away from mine.

A while ago I was contemplating the details of this top surgery (as you know, quite a few of the boys in my life are living through the process at the moment), and found myself not so much thinking of it in terms of what other people were doing but as something that I would one day do myself. This is not a thought that had ever occurred to me outside the context of 'geez, imagine if I had cancer and had get my tit/s removed, would I get implant/s or tattoo my scars or...?' and maybe the odd Amazon fantasy, you know, 'one tit for nurturing and one non-tit for fighting'. I love my tits, love the pleasures they provide to myself and others, love their milkiness and their imagination. But in this strange moment it seemed quite logical that to turn breast into chest was a decision that I would make at some point. Premonition? Strange inkling that will only make sense much later in the piece? Or just a reaction to hanging about so many gender-variant surgically/hormonally-altered folk that it almost seems unnatural to remain pretty much as is?

The one-breasted Amazon thing intrigues me, and may partly be the inspiration for my current musings on the correlations and conflicts and conversations possible between Breast and Chest.
Breast as soft, in state of flux, changing with moon and mood. Chest as hard, un(for)giving, constant through time and tide. Breast vulnerable and violated, flesh yielding to arrows. Chest with furry armoured pecs, shielding the heart. Breast open, easily accessed, sharing mysteries. Chest sealed, locked up, defending its treasures. Breast wet and talkative, writing riddles in milk. Chest dry and silent, mute and brutish. Breast as nurturing, willing sacrifice. Chest as protecting, the first line of defence.

The above word-association is fairly simplistic, true, and probably revealing more about me than I want it to! Just trying to muddle through all the associations and memories, the differences in cuddles between Mum and Dad when I was a kid, the different safeties and comforts given by each, the differences in textures and tastes and temperatures. And perhaps even the similarities.

* But to continue with Neil Young, I 'Got Mashed Potatoes'