I peeked through my half closed eyelids this morning and noticed something odd. I’m very rarely up and about before 8 AM (or 9… ish…) (Hey, I’m not a morning person). but I saw something really wrong out there. Smiley happy people. There is something REALLY not OK about an 8 AM coffee deprived morning combined with smiley happy people. It’s like dipping sweet juicy strawberries in mustard. Or Lindsay Lohan dressed like a non. Or wine with… No. Wine is good with everything.

Smiley Peoples. Go away! At least let me have my coffee first.

I am so happy I’m a SAHMMOTT so I can SIMPJADCUTKDMO.

(stay at home mom most of the time)

(stay in my PJ’s and drink coffee until the kids drag me outside)

 

It’s a sound I never want to hear in my life again. The heart-wrenching cry of a mother, leaning over the lifeless body of her deceased daughter.

Last Saturday I witnessed just that. A knife through my heart would have been less upsetting.

I was at a funeral service of Wendy (see previous post). And the daughter in this case being “just” or “already” 50 years old. The numerous speeches and quite untraditional songs played at the memorial (ever heard a group of 100 ppl sing Queen “I want to break free” at a funeral… anyone?) showed that she had lived, enjoyed and loved a rich life.

For hours I could not get the sound of her mother out of my head. But cycling home, I did not think of Wendy. Or her mother. I could only think of one thing: a sweet little girl called Meike and her mom. Meike is the 2 year old daughter of Mirjam & Richard, who we know personally. Like Wendy, Meike is also battling cancer. A very rare type of cancer. The difference with Wendy is about 48 years and unlike Wendy, who found out she had cancer when it already spread to her vital organs, Meike still has a chance to beat this.

But she can’t do it alone. Her body has to fight against this (and survive the heavy chemo). But also, after her 7th chemo treatment she’ll have to go to the US (Philidelphia) to receive a 6 month therapy that will increase her chances of beating this awful disease with 20%. Insurance covers a big deal, but they need a lot of money to make this trip.

We can still help Meike.

In the almost 10 years I’ve been blogging, I’ve never asked for money or help on this website. But I’m making an exception now.

Please consider coming to our fundraising auction December 8th (our home, send me an e-mail nadinemAT gmailDOTcom).
Or donating directly to the Mega Meike foundation(from a Dutch bank or international bank) even Paypall is accepted.
Or whatever way you can possibly think of.

Let’s try and prevent this mom (and dad) from losing their child. No parent should ever have to go through that.

And you probably do too.

“Do you want to endorse Miranda?” LinkedIn asked me a week or two ago. I would praise Miranda right into heaven if I could. But if there’s a heaven, I am sure that’s where Miranda is right now and that’s where she has been for almost two years.

And as of this week I can +1 my collection of deceased connections.

It’s weird to realize every year I get older, the chances are the list will grow, and grow and grow.

Before social media, as a dead person, you may have popped up on old photographs and videos, but no one would be bothered with your photo as a suggested friend, your birthday or requests for endorsements.

So what do you do? You just delete them? Disconnect? Unfriend? Unfollow? Stripping their social accounts of every friend, leaving them bare naked as a sad shade of the lively person they once represented?

I didn’t know Wendy that well. I worked with her a little bit. She was nice, passionate and just in her early fifties.

I’m mostly shocked be the speed in which death came to grab her life. About 3 months ago she was alive and kickin’. Not a care in the world. Barely one season has passed, the invite to her memorial service lays on our coffee table and she’s another ghost on my LinkedIn list.

And I raise my glass of red wine. To Wendy, to life. Because it’s too damn short sometimes.

F*ck you cancer.

Someone once jokingly asked when I’ll write my autobiography. Ehm. The answer to that is probably never, since really I think only the great on this earth are really meant to do that. Like the Ghandi’s and Einstein’s and Mandela’s and the inventors of coffee, alcohol and birth control.

But.

Since it is Breast Cancer Awareness month, I’ll do it. But not about me! Because unlike me, my boobs were once the great on the earth, and they deserve a biography.

And so it begins.

The early years

Every biography must begin somewhere, preferably at birth. But were my breasts ever born? (were yours?) What I do know is that they slowly arose in my early teens or in modern terms: tweens. I was about 10 and not yet in my final year of what we call basisschool (I guess in English it would be middle school) when they transferred from total flats to weird hills stuck on my chest making those weird things they call nipples stick out. As I was so young, they were the first boobs to grow in my class and I suspect the last ones to stop growing. This was fine when I could hide them, but I had to face reality here: at age 11 my mom took me to a #whisper bra store #whisper for my first bra. I wish I still had it. But probably threw it on the stage of a childhood celebrity crush at some early 90s concert. OK not really. But if I could go back in time, I would throw my bra on stage.

The beginnings of my rack, tucked away in the new crème white cute bra, I stared at them for hours in the mirror of my bedroom. Me. A. Bra. I. Am. A. WOMAN.
And off to school I went the next day. The bra safe under my clothes, I felt secretly proud of my new accessories but knew very well I should keep it a secret.

But alas, the embarrassing moment had to come. Climbing on a climbing frame at gym, the back of my bra (white) could be seen through my t-shirt (white). (hey, it was before my black light disco era and I wasn’t aware of the white under white dress fail yet, give me a break, I was 11!).

I had just climbed onto the top bar of the ladder, balancing to climb over it, when I heard a very loud “NADINE HAS A BRAAAAAAAAA!”. Hanging on the top bar of the ladder I cringed when I looked down saw the boy who screamed it pointing up. Other kids looked up as I suspect it was weird to see someone else but your mom in a bra.

I was not embarrassed at all, but let’s move on. Let’s not talk about the rise of pubic hair, shall we.

The rise of the rack

In the years after they grew and grew. And grew and grew. And grew some more. By the time I was 16 the rack was about size DD and sometimes E and it baffled me every time I tried to buy a new pair of bras. Not at the usual lingerie shops, but my size could only be found at exclusive stores that cost my mom and dad their vacations. But good bras are an investment. Right.

I didn’t realize until writing this biography that the combination of the rack with my small waist was quite photogenic and I could have probably earned my parents all the bra money back.

But I digress.

Where was I?

The boobs felt appreciated by the male population. It was hard to pretend I didn’t see the eyes male conversation partners drop to nipple height. Then again, they weren’t looking at my eyes so pretending wasn’t necessary. I don’t think many of the words I said actually mattered either.

Glory days!

And then I got pregnant

The best and the worst thing you can do to your boobs: get pregnant. I didn’t think it was possible but they grew even more. Really, I felt embarrassed. I have owned a size F. I had to shop for bras in the effin camping department to find me one that had size TENT. It wasn’t possible to see the 9 month belly from above because of the GIANTS. OK, I may exaggerate a little, but really.
##HUGE ##

The decline: the end of an era.

Boobs come in handy when you have a baby, you know. Boobs feeds them. REALLY. Baby’s survive on it. But every thing sensual or sexual about your breasts fades when you’re in the breastfeed era of live. And I did it 3 times. That’s 3 years of breastfeeding. And to be honest, ones proud and perky, they kinda… lost their glamour.

But there’s light!

They will probably never be the size they once were. And frankly I am grateful for that, weightlifting is nice but not 24/7. But they kinda got their glamour back since I stopped feeding Madison over 1,5 years ago.

And like wearing my first bra all those years ago, I still look at them in the mirror. And smile. I love my boobs. Really, what’s not to love. Who doesn’t love boobies?

And that’s why I’ll donate to BCAction through Boobiethon.a national grassroots education and advocacy organization working to end the breast cancer epidemic.

Boobiethon and I go waaaaaaay back. The original Boobiethon was created 10 years ago. Hundreds of women posted photos of their boobs on the website. They collected THOUSANDS of dollars for cancer research and in its second year I was brave enough to (anonymously) share my photos. Sharing boobies for a cause!

My message? Love your boobies!

And to conclude this boobography: they (the boobs) live happily ever after and I hope I never have to write a part two of this biography that doesn’t have a happy ending.