Without a leg to stand on……

We have just completed the family wedding weekend and simply put, I am pooped.

I had planned to write about all of the wonderful speeches, the memories of my 89 year old Grandmother smiling and enjoying the day, the humidity that took its best shot at ruining all of the women’s make-up and exposing my rather interesting, unsightly yet entertaining, saturated undergarments, seeing my baby brother as a grown-up for the very first time, welcoming a fabulous new sister-in-law into the family but I just can’t stop thinking about those legs.

Several of the young women in attendance had legs so small, I couldn’t believe the twigs could support their bodies and walk around. I was fascinated watching the girls actually move on them and in heels to boot! It was as though two thin rods hoisted up their torsos with an encasement of sun-kissed skin and off the “legs” would walk. The practice and dedication of that balancing act will continue to, ahem, stump me.

I asked my brothers if there was ever a time in my life when my legs were that tiny. Not even at birth was their unanimous response.

I did manage to wear my silver dress after having it let out which incidentally is an ingenious way of maintaining the size as indicated on the label and being the only one who knows the size is as fake as those stilts the young girls are dancing on. With the help of a rather complex contraption holding things flat and in place underneath, three of us managed to get the zipper done up. It was noted that it may not have another zip left so I was to keep myself contained and move as little as possible. Done.

I kept my bathroom breaks to a minimum but did have to make the trek twice. Small stall, unreasonably tight dress, unfathomably high underwear added a series of challenges to each visit. How I rolled it all back up, smoothed the dress back down, remembered to breathe through this exercise will have to remain my private business. I’m just glad my legs were strong enough to hold me up.

My young girls were mesmerized by the bridal party and as if they were selecting a favourite character on a lunch box, they would get as close as possible to the girls, just close enough to be invading their personal space and tell Greg and I, in their outdoor voices, which one was their “favourite” by pointing to her in the line-up. Thankfully, they are too young to view women as objects.

I stopped breast feeding on Tuesday, earlier in the week. I thought this would give me enough time to get over the pain, it didn’t. I thought it would give me enough time to prevent leaking, it didn’t. I thought it would suck the life out of my rather full looking breasts allowing me to slide back into my clothes without incident, it didn’t and maybe that last one wasn’t so bad.

A relative of the bride approached me and asked if I was a dancer. I’m pretty sure she meant stripper, a chesty assumption but one that won’t exist much longer so maybe I should take it as a compliment.

Maybe it was my legs?

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