My Bathing Suit Battle

The time has come that I will be traveling to a tropical destination with over 500 other people. Each year my husband's company has an award trip. The first year it was in Banff. I was overcome with joy. I can ski with the best of them and look good doing it. Every year since the trip has been to a warm weather destination.

Every year I get about 2 weeks out and panic about a bathing suit. It's not that I don't like water. I love the ocean....lying by the pool...even the water parks. I panic about the suit because I don't want to miss out on the fun because I am self conscious about the tiny piece of lycra that I am wearing. So, my husband, who is completely sympathetic, said let's go shopping yesterday. He totally gets that I don't want to do this, but will hate it if I want to go to the pool and am unprepared.

We head out to the mall. I don't care if I get a suit that costs $25 or $250 as long as it covers my bum and hold my boobs up where they belong (of course without being so tight that I have extra boobs under my arms). As we walk through Macy's I chastise myself for not ordering a Lori Coulter suit 2 months ago. I could have had a suit that was custom made for my body, in the color of my choice, and in the price range that I have set for this venture. But, alas, the denial that I have been saturated in cost me the time that it takes to get one of these delicious suits.

I finally end up buying 2 suits to take home and struggle into in the privacy of my locked bathroom. I put the first one on and it isn't half bad. It doesn't fit perfectly but it meets my two criteria...bum is covered...girls are mid way between my shoulders and elbows. I walk out and my husband says it is fabulous (gotta love this man). I don't leave the bathroom with the second suit.

Never-the-less, I am covered. I can lay by the pool or float down the lazy river and not feel like there are girl parts falling out all over the place. I remember the time that my husband and I played in the water park at the Grand Wailea in Hawaii all day. We laughed, we turned the wheel on the water elevator like crazy and we swung into the lagoon on a rope swing. There was also the time in Jamaica where we layed on rafts in the pool all afternoon, holding hands so we wouldn't drift apart, and talked like we hadn't in ages. I would have missed those moments if I had neglected to get a suit at all.

I bring this up because I don't know a woman who doesn't hate buying a bathing suit. Okay, there are the very young and supple or the genetically altered, but other than them....most of us hate bathing suits. As I go through the emotions of having to squeeze into one and show myself in public, my husband reminds me that the most beautiful he has ever seen me is when I laugh uncontrollably or relax completely and just succumb to life.

Live out loud, take all the opportunities and to hell with worrying about the tiny lycra!!