I have been busting my arse these last few weeks and have a long way to go until October. I've been a diligent and dedicated warrior. I've watched my body change for the better, but STILL I hated what I was about to do: shop for swim suits.
Could there be a worse task? Hmmm for me only if I had to do it in a grocery store.
I picked through and found a couple that were truly adorable; cute little polka dots and these neat little tie up bottoms. How fun! They made me smile. I walked into the dressing room with a heavy sigh. Now the yuck part: bad lighting smudgy mirrors...if I were any more pale I'd be translucent.
I began to put them on. This of course requires the wiggle, shimmy dance and hoist. I found it to be more strenuous than anticipated. The tag read "Secretly slimming" yeah, well, there were no secrets here. I looked like an overstuffed sausage: painfully overstuffed...like one that's been left on the grill too long and the skin is about to burst open. I had actually broken into a sweat; my body so red and itchy I felt as if I'd crawled through a tunnel of steel wool. Holy crap! What's WRONG here? I checked the tag and saw my size...but there was NO WAY I was buying this suit. In fact, I was panicking about how to get out of it without cutting it. You've heard of muffin top? Let's just say it looked like I'd crammed the whole damn bakery around my middle. I think I had back boobs What the Hell? WITH CLEAVAGE??? Give me a firetrucking BREAK!
The tears filled my eyes. I'd never felt so ugly in all my life. All the work, all the careful eating all the....it was bullshit. Forget the race. I'm not going. I stifled my sob with my shirt and pried myself from the suffocating sheath of teensy polka dots that I had managed to stretch into blurry Frisbees. I looked like fluorescent angry Swiss cheese. Jesus God. There was shame. Dirty embarrassed shame. Hideous. I hid my body in my clothes and placed the offensive article on the rack. I looked up and read the sign. My smile grew and grew.
They had put the rack of JUNIOR swimsuits in with the real ones. Maybe I should have known by the Dora and Disney Princess suits hanging in the back...Ya think?
Cautiously I picked up a new batch of prospects. I confess I was nervous. But to my relief, I actually got to pick a size smaller than anticipated; and you know what? I look mighty fine; rather well put together for a warrior. Race? I'm there. Gimme that hat! I turned sideways and pranced YES pranced in my little swimsuit world. I looked over my shoulder, pouted at my butt and took two... because they were small. :)
Whew. Close one. It WAS funny...after the fact. Thanks for laughing with me.
