All I wanted was a bra~
The week Harper passed away, on about Thursday, I decided to take a few hours for myself because I needed to buy a new bra to go with a blouse I was wearing to his memorial. I work from home, so I pretty much live in sports bras, but I just needed something new and this was the thing I chose.
I went to the outlet mall to one of my favorite women's stores where the sales assistant came over and asked me have I ever properly been fitted for a bra and I said no. So she proceeded to pull out her measuring tape, turned it sideways, put it around me. She measured under my arms and all of this stuff, and then came up with the size that she thought would fit me. It didn't, so I told her I wanted to look around for a little bit and she said okay. Now, in my head, what I heard was, "I'd like to look around a little bit but maybe you can check with me later to see if there's anything else I need". I guess in her head she heard "I don't need your help. Leave me alone and don't ever come check on me". Because that's exactly what she did. She left me alone. Several times I tried to ask questions, but she was busy with other people so I left the store feeling pretty defeated because no one ever came back to offer me any more help.
So as I was walking through the outlet mall, I saw another store where I thought I might be able to get this important piece of clothing. I was already a little bit on edge considering the emotional week we were having and dealing with the loss of sweet Harper. I walked into that store and the sales lady asked me, "Hi! What can I help you with?" And from somewhere unbeknownst to me, a river of tears started flowing and unintelligible words came from my mouth. She was a bit taken aback as you can imagine. Once I calmed down enough to tell her what I wanted, I said "I just need a bra, the last store I was in the sales lady left me alone and they never came back to check on me and I really just need to get a bra.". She listened to me as I explained why I needed this new bra to go with my shirt that I was wearing to my sweet grandsons Memorial. We looked around for a bit, I didn't find anything that fit or that I liked, but by the time I left she was crying too because she felt so bad for me. She did say that they had a sister store just a few spaces up that I could go and check at. She gave me a Kleenex, then we both dried our tears and out I went to the next store. Well, these ladies were very nice but once again they wanted to fit me for a bra. So I indulged them as they got their measuring tapes and proceeded to measure around and up and down and all sorts of ways. There was a little bit of a discrepancy between the two of them but they finally agreed on a cup size and a measurement they thought would fit me. They handed me a few to try on and sent me off into the dressing room. After I tried on the first one, I realized that if I'd had an audience, I probably could have done and Madonna impression because of the shape of the cup. I just had to sit down and laugh. Did I really need a bra this bad? 3 stores, Fair to mediocre help, and nothing that fit me or that I liked. So I just went out to the courtyard of the outlet mall and sat down on the Wicker bench and cried. I didn't really know why I was crying. Maybe it was from exhaustion-emotional or physical, maybe it was from grief, maybe it was from Pure exasperation, maybe it was everything and I really hadn't allowed myself the time to just sit down and cry that week. Maybe I didn't "just need a bra", maybe I just needed to cry.
This tale has a happy ending, as I was able to find the perfect item at the next store that I went to, but the moral of the story is sometimes it's not really about the bra.
Grief has a way of taking you down, and sometimes those around you too. I try not to let that happen in my everyday life, and looking back on that day I feel like I owe that 2nd salesperson a big Thank you for listening or a hug, or both.
Love ya'll ~
Rhonda
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