oh how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go right this minute
put on a bikini & don’t take it off.
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what im wearing: primark floral bikini, sunglasses & pineapple printed towel
The quote above is by a woman I have grown to admire after reading every single book & play she has ever written. You may know of her, Nora Ephron – and she waxes so wonderfully lyrical on so many of the trivialities that us women feel deeply. And it was precisely this quote that came to mind as I awkwardly pulled on the first bikini of the year. That first one, it’s the hardest one. Don’t you agree? Now, I’m not body shy, nor am I a prude – but there is something so strange about suddenly waltzing around practically naked after long months hiding under thick coat and sweater layers. I feel self-conscious and so I’ll shift around on my towel wondering if my legs are shaved sufficiently, what my derriere looks like, all the while, hoping, praying no one is looking at me. It happens every season, as the weather warms, I’ll timidly shove on a swimsuit of some kind and sit around wondering what I look like in it. And I’ll always convince myself I look utterly grotesque, ‘definitely larger than last year’ I’ll mutter to myself. And how sad to take that first pool or beach day, one I yearn and gasp for all winter long and put such a negative, self-deprecating spin on it. Usually, I can barely enjoy it because I’m too busy assessing the boob fat I believe to be spilling out of the sides of my bikini top. How utterly ridiculous! Who on earth cares?! In fact, everyone else is too busy wondering what they look like to even bat an eyelid at what I look like. So there we all are, us women, sitting on towels and not swimming, sliding glances at one another, each of us too shy to canonball into the water in the way we really wish too. And so at the brink of spring and beyond on that summer, I come at you with this – you look better than you think you do, I can assure you, promise you and 100% guarantee this. Your eyes are sadly connected to your mind – and that mind of yours will yell so many lies at you. Be warned and ignore them. Has it ever crossed your mind that one day you will look back and be nostalgic for the body you have now? You will age, we cannot defy gravity…we all end up wrinkly and saggy in places, eventually. Weather you are 18 or 45, if we are lucky, we all end up old ladies – but not today, not this spring and certainly not this summer. Right now we are all still young, and so I urge, no rather, I insist, you get up from your towel and enjoy your bikinis and your body this summer. Exactly what I did today – I added some lipstick and wore a push up bikini, because I can, because I’m young and there was sun. I jumped right into that almost too cold pool, there was no shrugging or skulking by my towel – and let me tell you, this year’s first bikini day was by far the most fun.
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