Be A Good Bra

Support is a tricky business. Most women understand the importance of a good bra, they also know how hard it is to find one. Those of us who do find something that works may by three of the same bra knowing it might be eons before we stumble upon on that actually does its job and isn't too terrible to look at. The issue with bras is they are all different. Sometimes the lace is itchy or it holds your breasts too high, it cuts in around the sides, or when you lean forward you nipple slips out, causing chaffing.

Like the great search for the perfect bra, sometimes you find a serious lack of adequate support in your life as well. It's tough because those people who are supposed to be your emotional or mental bra are completely incompetent when it actually comes to offering the encouragement you need. Instead of being an integral part of your foundation, they end up being the crack in the wall. The bra you've washed too many times and the shoulder straps are shot causing your boobs to sag.

Even worse, they might start off as the most amazing brassiere you've ever owned, but after only a couple of wears the under-wire begins creeping up the side, digging into the most sensitive skin of your under-boob. What once was a cornerstone of comfort swiftly becomes an annoyance, which can prove to be an issue, because you tend to want to hang onto these bras, imagining how one day they will be fixed and give the lush support they once gave so willingly. Maybe you even try to take the under-wire out completely, thus making one breast drop lower than the other and turn it into a more horizontal oval shape. Not very pleasing.

Finding an emotional bra to hold you up and keep you going when you are unsure or scared is hard. Bras (of the fabric kind) are finicky and intricate, much like the people we let into our lives. And bras (the human variety) are sometimes clueless to the type of support needed. Also, there is sensitivity. It's hard trying new things, stepping outside our comfort zones, striving for things we might not feel we even deserve.  Sometimes all we want is for someone to say, "You can totally do that." Even if what we want to do is completely ridiculous, or exceptionally silly.

There is something to be said about offering unconditional support. I know I try to be encouraging and optimistic when it comes to the people I love, offering help wherever I can. In truth, I want my friends and family succeed and be happy.  This is why it's so hard when the help, encouragement, optimism and hope of success isn't reciprocated. Maybe I just don't understand this desire people have to be realistic, especially when it comes to dreams. Someone once said, go big or go home. This world is too scary and cruel and defeating not to reach for the stars.

Life's too short to shake your head and say, "Do you know how hard it's going to be?" to someone else. There's no need for anyone else to be hard on us because we're already doing a bang up ourselves. Adding another person's doubt to our own apprehensions will only guarantee failure, or even worse, complacency.

Even if there isn't any follow-through, of if there is and it results in failure, isn't it better to be the most amazing bra for someone else on the off chance they do follow-through and actually win? I don't know about everyone else, but I want to be a part of that success. Part of the celebration. I don't want to be the person who deters someone away from fulfilling a dream. I want to be a good bra and offer support no matter the day, weather, or impossibility of the goal.