So, I’m like hiding out at Target the other day "food shopping" (yea, like you don’t make up fake shopping trips to get away from your kids) and got detained at the bathing suit section for a rather long time...just to bum myself out. You see, I have this bikini I purchased a long time ago with the hopes that it would inspire me to get my ass in gear so as to not be mortified should I ever be bold/slutty/ten-years-younger enough to actually wear it.
In public.
Now, for the sake of full disclosure, the only one who thinks I’m fat is that bitch in the mirror. I have it on good authority from several independent sources that I’m still do-able. I wear short skirts and skinny jeans, which leads me to question WTF my problem is.
"Kate Upton Defends Her Curves" read the headline on Yahoo Shine a few weeks ago.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
She’s 19, with gigantic free-standing bazongas and 72 inch legs. On the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. In a rather immodest pink bikini with cute little hearts on it.
Awwww.
When my horn-dog husband first started talking about this ‘controversy," he threw out some pretty colorful ideas about what he’d do to her, should the two of them be the last people on Earth. And she was blind. And really drunk. I was all like, “Oh, have fun, I’m sure the two of you will have tons to talk about.”
Meow.
Back from Target, I fire up the laptop and read the article defending her curves. Dear, sweet, fat Kate tries not to eat lots of junk when she knows she’s, like, going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing, like, a rather immodest pink bikini with cute little hearts on it. She exercises moderately. But other than that, just kinda does her own thing. This version of her regimen may be slightly disingenuous, but that’s not the point. In a culture where we’re rushing to get back to our pre-pubescent selves 47 minutes after we give birth, I kinda found this 19 year old’s take charming.
I'm 42. I have a 4-and-a-half-year-old. I have spent the past 34 years worrying about my body. I have starved myself down to 89 pounds. I have exercised 10 hours a week, every week. For years. I have gone so far as to endanger not only my life, but the life of my unborn child by exercising when I was ordered on bed rest. That stunt earned and my little sea monkey a lovely vacation on high-risk fetal maternal ward. I’ve let myself go because I was discouraged by what I saw in the mirror. Do the math. I’ve wasted a helluva lot of time on this.
On the eve of my 42nd birthday, I took the tags off that suit and went to the beach with my BFF. And for the first time in my life, I was good enough.
After I got a bikini wax, that is.
