And the winner is...

When I was 12, I got this smarty pants award at the end of the year in front of the whole school. It was like the best picture Oscar for seventh graders. Thing is, until the principal called my name, I was sure it would go to my rival, who was a boy. See, J was one of those academic sorts who was friendly and socially comfortable, but very obviously a brain first. I may have whipped his arse in a few tests, but he generally came out on top and although the finals were still a mystery, the class talked about him like he was the bomb of grey matter already.

Still, I wore my best 1985 dress, combed my boy hair and scrubbed my braces and showed up like a good loser should. And when they said "Carissa McCart" my faith in everything turning out alright was born. If I wasn't so gob-smacked, I would have kissed J full on the mouth and wished him well in his future career at Electronic Arts.

And this is what keeps me going with this c-crap and almost made me decide to keep one boob. But alas...

The Oscar goes to neither of my golden globes. I will tell my plastic surgeon this afternoon that both babies need to be removed if I'm going to move on with this next part of my life and look back as little as possible.

This was a fucking epic decision for me and one that had no right answer. The women my age I've communicated with or read about over the past six months who had a double have no regrets. Some of the ones who had a single ended up having some doubts and some went back later for the double.

When I wake up after my surgery it's going to be fucking hard to look at my empty, sewn-up chest and move past it to the time when I'll be sporting a new set. But that's not an emotion to base any decision on. Do I think the changes I'm making in my life will give me some protection/prevention? Hells yeah. Do I want to risk coming back to the chemo wing in 10, 20, 30 years? Fuck no.

So let's start again, boobies. We'll say our proper goodbye over the next few weeks. It's been fun, but it's obvious now that I can't move past the betrayal. And I'm not certain you won't stray again.

As for the faith that everything will turn out alright? Guess it's been shaken a tad, but I can still kick any boy's arse any day of the fucking week.