A little recap: I was quite disappointed with my A-cups when I got them. In middle school, I was certainly in the Dark Tunnel of Small-breasted Doom. Despite my efforts to focus on other things besides my chest, I still felt inadequate…

Once I started high school, I wasn’t as concerned with my boobs in particular as I was with simply getting a boyfriend. With a little luck at the end of freshman year, I began my first relationship. We took the physical things slowly since neither of us had really dated anyone else. Don’t get me wrong, parts of me (I bet you can guess which parts) wanted to be all over him, but the rest of me was pretty terrified of all the new territory. In our ten-month relationship, we never ventured past second base. We simply agreed not to go any further. It was above-the-waist lovin’, all the time, and I just loved it. My boobs? My little boobs? They got ATTENTION. And it felt GREAT.

I think I went a little nuts because of it. I don’t remember much about that relationship, but I remember being super-duper happy about being felt up. You might’ve even called me “giddy,” at least after my initial ‘should-we-be-doing-this?’ hesitation. The guy and I had chemistry, but not much else. He dumped me; life went on. I still dreamed of C cups, but my Dark Tunnel of Small-breasted Doom had been lit up a bit by that first relationship. A guy had liked me, for a while, and my boobs didn’t have that much to do with how I got the guy or why we ended. That gave me a little more perspective. Maybe I was making too big of a deal about my little boobs.

In college, my perceptions and opinions of breasts came of age with me. I wondered if the super-curvy, super-conservative, proper women I met would ever want to (or get to) experience a “breastjob.” I certainly wanted to have that option, but I had too much valley and not enough hills for it to be practical. After I finally saw some porn, I became almost mesmerized at how breasts could swing and jostle during sex. It looked like it would feel great, and one day I figured out how to get that feeling. When I got off, I’d literally jostle myself with my hand as I lay on my back. It sounds weird, but it made me feel like my boobs were bigger. All that motion, that tugging feeling, sensations I didn’t normally have, were really hot. I could close my eyes and imagine myself as a beautiful, busty goddess.

My roommates unconsciously affected my boob self-image as well. One girl told me she wished her boobs were like mine, which she called “perky.” “Mine point down and to the sides,” she said with a sigh. Another situation made me realize that my flatter chest was somewhat practical. A friend asked where she could keep her ID card when she went for a run. I told her to just put it in her bra. “Well,” she said, looking at me, then at her (lovely, curvy) chest, “I think that’s easier for you.” I guess when a sports bra makes me flat, a flat ID card isn’t really noticeable. Score?

By then, much of the framework of the pathway to pride had been laid. I’d seen that my boobs didn’t hold me back from dating, and even found some positive aspects of my A-cups. But there was still some part of that Dark Tunnel left. What would help me through it? What would guide me to the beautiful land of Small-breasted Pride? Find out next week.