I recently began deep water workouts again. I abandoned weight training in favor of a similar program about 8 or so years ago, and it proved to be a very effective program. Toning, strengthening and best of all it was in the water, my adopted second home at the time. Fast forward to now. I happily discovered that the local pool offered a deep water class twice a week for an hour. The upside is that it is as good a workout as I remember, and the downside is that it is from eight to nine in the evening. It’s not even five, and I am ready for a nap.
My current swim attire turned out to be unsuitable for water workouts, as I feared it would. Tankinis have a tendency to “fly up” in the water when you are aqua-sizing. Back in the day, I wore a two piece. I owned quite the assortment of bikinis, and I made good use of them. During the summer, I swam nearly everyday, and a bikini top was pretty standard for me under my t-shirt and sometimes without the tee at all if it was warm enough. When I mentioned to Rob that I owned several of these suits, he asked if I had been an exhibitionist. I never thought of myself that way then though I suppose, looking back, I was. Growing up I had been quite uncomfortable with skimpy because, as I have mentioned before, I was pretty hefty. When I reached thirty though, years of religious work out, including an avid love of running, had put me in the physical shape necessary, in my opinion, to carry off a two piece. However, pregnancy and years of care-taking pretty much wiped up my gains, both physically and confidence-wise. Though I am in actuality thinner than I was a decade or more ago, I am not nearly in as good a shape, but I needed a two piece to be able to work out sans annoying suit.
So yesterday, I trekked across Edmonton (by myself thank you very much) to the West Edmonton Mall. It’s fall here in Canada and the swim-wear is gone from the department stores, but there are plenty of specialty shops at West Ed because Canadians, as I have oft-mentioned, take their holidaying seriously. The Surfco shop was nothing but suits and the vast majority were really tiny bikinis. Sure they had one piece suits that would have worked, but I just can’t work out in them. They are too short=bodied for me. So, with the help of a very pretty and annoyingly thin shop girl, I picked out three suits that I hoped wouldn’t shatter all the confidence I had built up just for this occasion and into the dressing room I went.
The first suit was actually too big. It feels great to try something on and find that it is too big for you. That doesn’t happen often. Usually things fit but are too short or not the right design for my frame, but too big is always a treat. The next suit, I have to admit, I looked pretty darn good in for someone my age. I read recently that the actress Demi Moore has spent about a half million dollars on “upkeep's and upgrades” for her body. She is a year older than I am, and looks better than both her teenage daughters, but she has the too-taunt facial expression that screams “botox” and a stomach too flat for a mother of three that plainly pronounces her a cheater because once you’ve given birth there is a certain curvature to the solar plexus that you will never be rid of regardless of how stringent your diet or vigorous your workout routine. Looking at myself in that light blue sting bikini, yes....it was a string bikini, I felt sorry for her. I looked great. No muffining over the stings. The bum cheeks didn’t have that stuff sausage look of trying to put too much flesh into to small of an area. Yeah, my stomach could be more flat and my thighs a shade thinner, but I am nearly forty-four. I’ve had a child and know the stress of long term care-taking. My arms and legs have seen a bit of sun, though no deliberate sun worshipping. I am not young and firm and impossibly thin though I am smaller than the average size American (and Canadian for that matter) woman.
However, I didn’t get the string bikini. Maybe if Rob had been shopping with me, I could have been (easily) persuaded, but my old prejudices and standards wouldn’t allow the purchase. Looking good for my age, doesn’t quite cut it with me even now. Last year I would watch the girls in the high school where I taught with a feeling that couldn’t decide if it was admiration or horror. They would strut proudly up and down the halls wearing clothes that were clearly designed with small and taunt in mind, not pudgy, paunchy and even quite overweight. When I was in high school, well.....I wore a uniform it was Catholic school, but girls of a certain size were barred from wearing “thin girl” outfits. And this was not just a social admonishment, it was by design. There wasn’t yet the financial incentive needed by clothes makers to cater and pander with lycra and spandex enticements.
Suit number three turned out to be the winner. And not by default. There is something about practical, functional and sexy rolled into one that takes a clothing purchase to the next level past shopping nirvana. It’s halter style made it good for actual use in the water, and it fit even better than the string one, although there is something about a string bikini that just says sexy in a way that no other suit truly does. For my part I am pleased to be back into a two piece. Believe it or not it is part of the reclaiming of myself process that has been going on for a long while. I modeled it for Rob later that evening and he pronounced it hot looking. Of course there is some bias there.
