If our underwear could talk what tales would emerge? Yesterday while I was going through the miscellaneous stuff that was stored in our storage room I came across my oldest underwear and bras. They lay buried in my suitcases that had been a part of my trousseau.

April it will be five years to my marriage and the bras that I unearthed were as old. Well, five or six of them for every year give or take and the sizes also varied accordingly. They are testimonies to the changes and milestones that my life had sailed through and achieved.

Picking up an all lace white bra that I had worn on my wedding night, I couldn’t help but smile as it was a size 34B. That bra had seen a lot of action – love, sex , family troubles, leaving India and then conceiving another heart beat in California.

I smiled and put the bra back in the small bag and picked up another one – a green one – lacy again but kind of cheap bought from Walmart. The bra was a see through nylon with saggy straps.

I had bought while I was in Dallas in 2002 when I was six months pregnant.

Since I was still gaining weight at the time it made sense to buy my female essentials from Walmart but the parrot green color of the bra was a sad reflection on the pre-partum depression I was suffering at the time as my sense of fashion had been totally screwed.

As I stared at the bra I wasn’t sure I wanted to hang on it. Some of the memories attached to it weren’t pleasant. But I placed it back in the bag. I wasn’t going to get closure just by burning a bra!

The next one was too far gone to hold on to. An off white bra with milk stains on it. It was a breast feeding bra. It was an ugly, functional garment which said- This cow can only be milked and not humped.

Turning it round I saw the darning I had done on it and couldn’t stop grinning at the miser I had become during that time (the hook had come off under the pressure of my milky boobs), I was into darning everything- sock, bras, sweaters- you name the cloth that had died a natural death and I would show you how I revived it to live a little longer by darning.

Rummaging through my old underwear/lingerie I found more feeding bras that had cupped my body in 2003

They were in a slightly better shape and had a bit of a lacy on top. This was the period when the cow batted her eyes at the bull as the calf had been weaned.

2004 was a year when I began to lose weight and my bras became exciting. French knickers got along with American bras albeit being kind of mismatched.

As a rule I don’t like panties. They give wedgies, tighten at all the wrong places and generally speaking are germ carpets. Thus, in these five years of marriage I have six good panties that have been barely worn- they were expensive, bought on a whim and are so tiny on the back that getting wedgies is a given thing.

My bras of 2004 were mostly from Victoria Secret and most of them had front snaps. They were sexy, convenient and fun, just like my life had been during that year when my kid had become independent enough to give me breathing space so as to be creative and thus became a happier person.

End of 2004 saw a drastic change in my bra collection as I became pregnant yet again. This time round I wasn’t as thrifty as I had been in my first pregnancy. By then I had realized that I shouldn’t do penny pinching on myself. It didn’t help in supporting my family nor my breasts for that matter.

My bras both during the pregnancy and after having the baby came from Target. The feeding bras as usual were asexual and became saggy after four or five washes. My size changed and so did my bras but they all looked and felt the same.

They had front loops that could come down to feed the baby and were quite comfortable and loose. Tight restrictive bras are known to cause a decrease in milk supply hence my fruits probably swayed a tad too much while we were in San Francisco in the months of August, September and early October
.

But by mid November my boob size decreased sizably thanks to breast feeding . I couldn’t see myself be literally laden with two jiggling melons instead of well stacked oranges.

So off I went shopping with my Amex card and found that I had lost some more weight and from the 32D (double gulp) that I had been wearing I had come down to a 36C .

I had been wearing loose bras that had given my breasts too much breathing space and no support.

My current bras are regular bras from Target and this time round they round clearly state my thinking –to hell with convenience, motherhood should not be devoid of a sense of fashion. One can enjoy a bit of lace even at a frugal price.

The bras I’ve bought were under the special occasion section- underwired (which is a must for all women who have stepped beyond the parameters of mid-twenties and feeling the slight pull of gravity) a half way cup then pure heavenly lace and finally a nice satin bow in the middle.

I didn’t buy the matching panties as they hardly had any backing. My fear of wedgies continues to haunt me though I did by matching camisoles to spice up the evening once the kids were asleep and I had enough energy to be put to bed by my husband.

As I closed my bag I wondered how fast the years had flown by. I still felt twenty- six in some ways and yet older in many other ways.

My body had clearly changed from being that of a girl to a seasoned wife and mother.

The wears and tears on my bras spoke more about the joys I had been blessed with and less about the sorrows.

I couldn’t bring myself to part with them. They should be thrown away. No one in their right mind donates underwear and I couldn’t bring myself to snip them in the middle and throw them in trash.

Putting the bag back in the storage room I promised myself that the day I was in a more practical mood I would once again go through the lingerie bag and remove the bits of lace which no longer served any purpose besides making me nostalgic and taking up space that could be better used by the clothes my kids outgrow.