I went to a wedding when I was 13 years old. The bride was a family friend and it was her second engagement, you see. Her first fiance left her after they found the cancerous lump in her breast.
After the mastectomy, she fell in love again.
The bride and groom rode away in a carriage with white horses. An older lady passed me on her way to her car.
"Lovely ceremony, wasn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," I replied.
"Don't worry. It'll happen soon for you. You're a pretty girl."
I don't know why she told me not to worry. Did she think I was wiling away my pubescence in stark terror of spinsterhood? I believe she meant well, but the conversation stuck with me.
Especially the part about being a pretty girl. What did that have to do with anything? Was that the only reason why someone would want to be with me? Because he thought I was pretty?
And what happened once I was no longer pretty? Aging out of loveliness is inevitable, after all, like an invisible expiration date stamped on a gallon of milk. Would he stop loving me once I spoiled and find a younger girl who had once been pretty at 13 as well?
Or maybe if I lost a breast to cancer... that would certainly give him license to cut ties.
Because what man wants a woman who is built like an Amazon? I don't mean like in that stupid song comparing woman to 'brick houses'. A real Amazon. The mythologized warriors who cut off their left breast in order to throw a spear more efficiently, to win wars and survive to victory.
Even at 13, I knew that a fighting spirit was more valuable than merely being seen as pretty, even if society refuses recognize it. Or boyfriends who abandon their cancer stricken girlfriends for greener pastures.
