I can remember walking down the hallways of high school day after day being looked at as if I were some type of object. No one ever looked me in the face. It was as if there eyes were always too busy exploring other places on my body. It never really struck me to think about where there eyes were focused. Yet, it was where their eyes were focused that brought me to where I am today.
Here I sit, on a flat white mat covered with a white cloth, and all I can focus on is the clock and the minutes slowly passing by. The clock now read 6:00am, and as each minute passes I can feel my stomach begin to growl. I think to myself "I have been starving myself for the past twelve hours and for what?"
With that thought I begin to examine my past. I think about the hallways of high school; the plain white walls with blue lockers lining each side of the hallway. Suddenly, I begin to think about the numerous confrontations that occur within those hallways. It's almost as if the hallways hold a special value to each clique. You see, in my high school there were a plethora of cliques. You had the jocks, the skaters, the nerds, and the band geeks, and then there was the rest. Where did I fall, in the middle of all these cliques? Well, let's just say I was a part of “the rest.”
"The rest" was in no way a clique. It was just a bunch of people who chose not to associate with any particular group. It was those people who were looked at oddly but, for some reason I was the one who was looked at in an awkward manner the most. I though of myself as an average girl. Yes, I was indeed short in stature, and am still today, but I was always told "good things come in small packages" so I never thought of myself as being any different.
Indeed, everyone knows the struggles that come in high school; finding a date to the prom, sex, parties, and many other things, but none of those things ever fazed me. My high school career was not about whom I was going to prom with or when I would lose my virginity. It was about putting my best foot forward and getting into a good college. I guess in some ways I did break the barriers of a "normal" high schooler, in the sense, but why was I being treated so differently?
As I snapped back into reality, I look back at the clock; it was only forty-five minutes later than the last time I looked at it. The clock reads 6:45 am, and here I am sitting on this white sheet. A young woman approached me, and gave me a top to cover myself, she said "Could you please take off all you garments except for your panties and put this on with the opening in the front?" I slowly began removing each leg from my jeans, and as I proceeded to undress myself again the thoughts of high school reoccurred in my head.
This time, I was sitting in the cafeteria; people were looking at me, looking under the table…at me! All I could think about was why they were doing this. What was under the table that looked so appealing? I would look at my friends surrounding me for an answer but, they all giggled at me as if I were stupid. I never really took notice as to where the table fell on my petite body; the only body parts exposed above the cafeteria table were my shoulders, my neck, and my head. I guess I was so juvenile at the time that I never really took into any thought that what they were looking at beneath the table could be something that would later scar me for life.
Suddenly, I heard a voice say “Melissa, are you dressed in the top I gave you?” I stopped thinking about high school and came to the situation that was developing around me. With a little hesitation in my voice I responded “Yes.” The woman slowly opened the curtain that was surround the mat covered with the white sheet, and said “Melissa, please lie down we’re going to transport you to another room now.” With that, I laid down, on what seemed to be the most sterile bed ever. All I could smell was bleach. Slowly the bed was being pushed an all I could do was look up at the ceiling. Before being moved from one room to the other, I caught one last glimpse of the clock, it read 7:45am.
Time was moving faster than I wanted it to. I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing. As the bed I was lying on moved down the hallway, I heard every little crack it went over. It reminded me of the number of people who brought me where I am today. On my journey from one room to the next, I counted seven cracks, and for some reason these seven cracks resembled the seven people. The seven people who were always too busy looking else where than at my face. The seven people: Rob, Dan, Jesse, Brian, Matt, Jamie, and last but not least Will.
As I sat in the room all I could think about was the last of the seven people, Will. Will was the worst out of the seven he never would even make an effort to look me in the eye. He was the one who drew the straw that broke the camel’s back he was the one who woke me up into reality. He was the one I wanted to punch in the face numerous times for pointing it all out. As much as I wanted to deny it existed, it did.
So, there I was lying on this bed, about to go into surgery, and all I could think about is what Will had done. Before entering the operating room, the anesthesiologist approached me and asked me many questions like my name, my date of birth, and if I had a living will. I answered all the questions slowly. “My name is Melissa Veronica Shaw. My date of birth is 9-30-84. I have no living will.” All of the sudden before my anesthesiologist could walk away I grabbed her and said “You want to know why I’m going through with this?” Before she could answer I said “Well, I’m tired of people not looking at my face and focusing on how large my breasts are. I’m tired of the fact that because I have a larger chest people feel its okay to touch without asking. As a matter of fact, there is nothing more I would want right now than to make my chest invisible, but this is the only operation available to me, a breast reduction.” With that the stretcher was transported into the operating room where I was moved onto a cold metal table, and as soon as I was placed on the table my anesthesiologist said “Everything will be okay Melissa, I promise. Now what I want you to do is count backwards from one hundred.” I began to count “100-99-98…” and there I was off to sleep and soon all my troubles would be cut away.
