My delicate frickin' flower

"I'm telling you Rissa, when you're middle-aged, your vulva gets sassy."

Rissa pauses brushing her teeth. "I'm sorry?"

"Your vulva - well at least your labia - they get..."

"What is happening right now?"

"I was wearing those pants without underwear..."

"Ma!"

"I am passing on information that will be useful when YOU are 52 years old."

"About my vulva?"

"Or it might just be your labia. I'm never sure of the distinction. I mean, I know that the labia are the lip bits. Help me out here. You're the nursing student."

Rissa looks like she wants to bang her head on the vanity. "The vulva is the whole crotch area."

"Crotch is the vulva. Got it." I think for a sec. "Crulva."

"Please don't ever say THAT again."

"What? If I make a new word it will forever be clear in my mind."

"Other people's mothers don't share like this."

"But they should! Seriously. You're going to want to know that lace underwear will become the enemy in your 40s and then, when you're 52, you go commando in a pair of 95% polyester / 5% spandex/elastane wide cut pants and your... labia - really it's just the labia - will not be happy with you."

Rissa just looks at me.

"And I used to be able to wear the pretty lacy panties, but now, unless there's a cotton gusset in there with some good acreage, by the end of the day (or night - depending when I wear them) my crulval area is not pleased."

David pokes his head into the bathroom. "Crulval?"

Rissa shudders. "Please DO NOT encourage her."

"Crotch and vulva. The crotch area is the vulva," I say as I brush my teeth.

"Ahhhhhh, I see."

"I'm trying to impart my knowledge of what the female body does..."

"I don't think all female bodies do this," says Rissa.

"Oh, I think they do. You get older and your body gets overly sensitive."

"YOUR body Ma. YOUR body is WAY sensitive."

"I'm going to poll my friends."

"OH. MY. GOD."

"And then you'll know....  Wait! I am going to ask Mor Mor and I will bet you anything that she'll confirm it." 

"I can't see Mor Mor wearing lacy panties."

"Because now she CAN'T."

"Seriously?"

"I'm sure that Mor Mor would still wear lacy panties if she could. She might want to spice it up now and again..."

"ARGH!"

CUT TO: THE NEXT MORNING

"Mor? Can you still wear lacy panties?'

There is a pause on the other end of the phone. "Can I what?"

"If you wear lacy panties or non-cotton panties, do they irritate your lady bits?'

"Well... no, I don't think so."

"No?"

"I've never noticed that."

"I'm talking about a pair of LACY panties - with a very small gusset?"

David snorts from the other room.

"I can't say that it's ever been an issue for me. I mean, I don't wear a lot of lacy panties now, but I do have polyester panties and they don't seem to bother me."

"But they have a BIG cotton gusset right?"

"Well I've never measured it."

"Aw crap. She's right!"

"Who's right?"

"Rissa. She said that my lady bits are just overly sensitive."

"Well that may be the case. Your body IS sensitive. You know Heather, natural fibers are always best. These new fabrics are all well and good, because they're easy to care for, but you can't beat cotton."

"Yeah, I know. These new fabrics, they bite me in the... well, not ass, but they sure as hell irritate my labia!"

"And this is why you called?"

"Yep. Thanks. Love you." I hang up the phone.

Rissa comes down the stairs. "I told you it was just YOUR..."

"Crulva?"

She rolls her eyes. "Last night something struck me. You said you were wearing pants with no underwear."

"Yeah."

"Well don't do that! If you wear underwear you won't get irritated."

"Yes, but those pants are jersey and if I wear cotton panties with them, the pants will be all bunchy and clingy..."

"WEAR cotton thongs! They MAKE cotton thongs!"

Epiphanic. "Yes. Yes, that's perfect. I can do that. Unless my perineum is irritated."

***

Please help me get to the bottom of this.

DIY Nip/Tuck

David and Rissa say that I am not allowed to take up DIY cosmetic surgery. No matter how much I want to. I'd just like to say though, that if my armpits were made up of fabric instead of migrating breast tissue stores, I could put a dart in that shit. 

I am very handy with a needle and thread and excel at following YouTube videos. I'm pretty sure that with some hydrogen peroxide, a shop vac and fishing line I could do some good work. But "because it's flesh and blood with the possibility of infection and death," I'm not allowed to try.  After being my own successful guinea pig, I could offer my APP NT (arm pit pudge nip/tuck) to friends and family. I'd do it as a charitable service for other women of a certain age whose bodies have chosen to metamorphose without their host's permission.

Scratch that - do not try this at home. I just googled it and this was the first thing that came up:

I want to be that body-positive 52 year old with 5 decades of comfortably living in my skin. But instead of reveling, I spend an inordinate amount of time fixated on my extra breasts. I sqwoosh them. I berate them. I feel that they are a beacon to the entire world. I Google "extra weight around middle" and discover that a waist line over 35 inches for a women is a health concern. Oh, for the love of... this is no longer cosmetic! 

Fucking menopause. Its subtitle is literally THE CHANGE OF LIFE. I should know this.

My breasts have converted their now useless milk ducts into even more incredibly bodacious ta-tas?  Huzzah! If I want to stop traffic on King Street, all I've got to do is take a deep breath. Those same boobs that are no longer content to dwell upon my torso and have now snuck across the border into arm pit town?   Give me a sec...  wait... wait... I could hook up small bicycle horns so that when I play with their pulchritude I get a musical interlude!  And... a great new busking act! From which I could make money!  HAH!

Benign moles getting me down? Play connect the dots with all that new skin topography and see how many constellations I have!

To maintain my weight I now need to walk for more than an hour each day and cut more calories, but not so many calories that my body's fight or flight response is triggered?  It's all good! My heart and lungs just LOVE the extra exercise and juggling carbohydrate and caloric math is incredibly helpful to my now failing brain!

When I update my glasses prescription I want a filter so that I can see myself through my daughter's / friends' / husband's eyes. They don't see the extra boobs or the increasing waist line. They see my smile, my vintage skirts with pockets, my me-being-me.

So how about this? I shall focus on my physical health, but not to the detriment of my mental health. I'll walk more, I'll eat things that are good for me, I'll manage my stress by remembering this,

and I won't pick up a scalpel.