Of Course I Have Opinions on Swimsuits

Really, who doesn't? 

Spending the day at the beach got me thinking about it again. How other people carry and wear suits. What their comfort level is. What styles are coming back. What styles really should go away. 

In many ways, I thank my size as child and teen for making me likely less paranoid and less cautious about wearing a swimsuit in public. 

I was never anything resembling petite. Not fat, by clinical standards, but not petite. I carry my weight in my torso. Bikinis were never a thing that could happen for me. And, when you're a not-petite person doing varsity swim, you quickly accept that OK, everyone's going to stare at the fat girl in the pool, so wear the damn suit and get over it. 

Even after high school, it wasn't that I didn't care, as much as I accepted the reality. I was fat. But I liked to swim. So a swimsuit had to happen. 

I switched to tankinis when I went on the pump. I'm cool with showing the pump and its tubing when I'm in the pool, but I don't want to be an on-display diabetic when I'm at the beach, or generally just relaxing.

And that's when a difference started happening.

For some reason, in my head, a one-piece racing suit is different. It's going to cling, and you're going to see lumps, and that's just the nature of a suit. 

But tankinis by nature are tanks. They've got leeway to cover and drape, and thus, I had always bought them on the larger side.

Fast forward to this January. I knew that new tankinis needed to happen (so did new Speedos, but that's a different ball of drama and wax, since Speedo sizing is inconsistent ... but at least you know that going into it, and they do online returns easily). So I bought a few from Lands End during a sale, and figured that OK, lots of sizes, and return to Sears what didn't work.

Oy. For the first time in my life, I was confronted with the reality that OK, the hips are a 4, but the waist is an 8. And that the pictures on sale sites show people wearing suits that are much closer to their actual size than what I'd been wearing.

So I picked out a few, kept them, and promptly shoved them in a drawer.

Until the weekend of the Presque Isle Half Marathon. I went with what at the time felt like the best option, and tossed it in my bag. 

Pro tip: When you try to wear a swimsuit after a half marathon with an upset stomach, where there is endless boob sweat, and everything hurts, no suit will ever feel sexy. 

I came home and sulked.

And resolved to try it again.

So last Sunday, before going to the beach, I tried the options again. This time, I realized that OH, right, boob sweat. And found a combination that worked, and I happily put it on and went to the beach.

Where I proceeded to people watch. And saw that even though I feel like my torso must always be covered, there were lots of people with worse abs than I wearing bikinis, and seeming perfectly happy with it. None of them with pumps, of course, but with all of those lumps and bumps that I always feel are a public indicator of how fat I am. 

And there were people who were bigger than I was wearing bikinis, and seeming to give absolute zero fucks. 

Do I think I'll ever be comfortable in a bikini? No. 

But I am envious of the people who can be.