"I just stopped noticing after a while."

On growing numb to the sacrifices we make.

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As you may already know from my last newsletter, I was in South Carolina last weekend hanging out with old friends. It’s funny — we rarely do much on our weekends away. We don’t go clubbing, we don’t go shopping. We try to get out for a meal at least once, but really, we’re there to enjoy each others’ company. We just want to talk — to laugh, vent, commiserate, and recommend books and TV shows and clothing items and vibrators.

This year, on the night we arrived, we started talking about bras — as you do on a girls’ weekend. One friend said that she had discovered some amazing new wireless bras that she wears regularly and that are almost comfortable enough to sleep in — not, she added, that anyone would ever sleep in a bra. Everyone but me nodded and laughed. And then I said something like*:

(*we have debated the exact wording and cannot for the lives of us remember)

“Wait, you all don’t sleep in bras?”

It was like a record scratch. The room went silent. My other friends turned to me and said “WAIT. YOU SLEEP IN A BRA????” Then, I had the audacity to clarify that I actually sleep in an underwire bra.

Readers, my friends were shocked and mortified. They immediately started grilling me. What the hell? Why would I do this? When did I start doing this? Did I like torturing myself? It was like I’d broken an unspoken rule of womanhood.