Diary of a Flat-Chested Girl

Why is my body different?

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Age 10:

I saw this girl today, she looks different than other girls I have seen in my life. I’m sure she is a girl, but why is her chest so flat? Was my eyes playing jokes with me? No, she is not a baby; my friend said she is twenty-something years.

I just asked my sister and she said that the girl is a girl and it’s normal. Normal? How? To not have a full chest?

Age 13:

All my friends are “developing” and getting matured. Life is funny! All my friends, except me. I still look 10, they said it’s normal and I’m trusting the process.

Age 17:

I’m tired of trusting the process— the only difference between my primary school self and now is my height. I’m out of secondary school but I don’t look so. I think I look funny but my siblings said I look okay. Are they lying? Someone said I should wait till I’m 19, they said it’s the magical age.

Age 19:

I’m 19 today and… nothing. No magic, no fairy tale. I’m just laughing at my wild imagination. It’s high time I accepted my body and stop waiting for a magical fantasy to take place. But what’s the harm in hoping? A lot.

I remember trying to run away from conversations that have to do with women, because each time I try to share my thoughts, a number of people would turn and say, “But you won’t(don’t) understand.” I remember trying to bend my back so that I will not draw attention to the peanuts on my chest. I remember trying to act boyish because I feel that’s what people expected from a flat-chested girl. I remember feeling less of a girl. I remember questioning my body over and over again. I remember feeling less beautiful. I remember taking pictures and deleting because it showed how flat my chest is. I remember rejecting many beautiful dresses because of my chest. I remember shrinking myself because I wasn’t happy.

But what I forgot is that we didn’t make ourselves, but we have the choice to accept ourselves. And to an extent, people see what you show them, if you keep feeling less beautiful or keep trying to hide yourself because you don’t like a part of your body, people will see right through you and will prey on that. They will intensify that feeling of “less” that you feel, they will help you build mansions with rooms of how you are not enough and would never be enough. So, own your body. Act beautiful because you are. Don’t let your chest size define beauty for you, that’s not the only criteria of being feminine.

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It’s time we came to terms with how we look. If as humans, we are allowed to choose our body parts, no one will look the way they look—everybody wants things differently, either a different size of eyes, arms, waist. Until we understand that we are a product of our parent’s genes and there’s nothing we can really change then we will really accept ourselves.

“And you don't need to change a thing,

The world could change its heart.”

—Alessia Cara