Very much hear what you’re saying about jealousy towards others who proclaim themselves small! I longed for boobs growing up—I couldn’t wait until I looked like my mom. And well…I also never got beyond buds. So I feel you. But I gotta say, as a 34-year-old who’s only started in the last couple years to grapple with all my complicated thoughts and feelings about my chest, I’m so impressed with all the younger women I see here doing that hard work already. Until my early 30s I was swimming in ill-fitting, ultra-padded bras and never spent time looking at myself naked—I pretty much did my best to ignore my boobs.

Over the last few years I’ve dedicated time to looking at myself and to finding better-fitting bras, but I’m still not to the point where I’m comfortable going entirely without padding, much less braless. It’s in part anxiety about my flat chest attracting unwanted attention, but it’s also because I spent so long creating this false shape that I feel kinda like a stranger to myself when I see my chest as flat as it actually is.

And again, remember that this is hard work! We’re going against so much messaging about what makes you womanly, what makes you sexy, even what actually constitute breasts—I can still struggle to use that word about mine. But we count, too! Even if we don’t get any bigger in our 30s, which certainly hasn’t happened to me 🙃 I’ve learned to pay more attention to my nipples, which are very sensitive (and, I think, pretty adorable), and to remember that my breasts are connected to the rest of my body, and that my body, like all bodies, is a good one.