30/12/2009

shopping for swimwear

Posted in Uncategorized tagged bathers, beach, bikinis, body image, eating, exercise, miracle suits, shopping, swimwear, women at 5:15 p12 by Anita Spitzer

Now that Christmas is over and New Year is *nearly* over, I’ve been mentally taking stock of what I need for my week at the beach. Today that meant coming to the slow realisation that I don’t have any togs. Well, actually I have a pair of worn bikinis, a one piece suit for doing laps and a ‘miracle’ suit that’s supposed to take 5kgs off your body when you put it on. I bought the miracle suit a couple of years ago when I was convinced that I couldn’t possibly reveal my body on holidays in Fiji. But a combination of insights changed my mind: I remembered that no-one knows me in Fiji; that I like to get a tan, however politically incorrect that may be; I also like the sensation of sun and water on my skin and I just don’t feel old enough to be wearing a ‘miracle’ suit. So it has sat at the back of my underwear drawer ever since.

This morning, accepting I wasn’t going to be flouncing around in a flimsy two-piece, I decided to see if I could find a decent bikini top to just wear it with board shorts (which can hide a multitude of sins). Oh boy. One of the disadvantages of having Christmas and the New Year in the summertime is that it’s a time of over-indulgence and also one of taking stock. The time you realise that you’ve been stressed out from work, over-eating and under-exercising is the exact same time that you realise that you will shortly be on your week’s holiday at the beach. There’s enough time to buy some new bathers but not enough time to do anything about looking okay in them. Hence, I suppose, the invention of the miracle suit.

The short version is that I tried on a few things, became increasingly dismayed and left without buying anything. For a second I considered trying another shop but then I woke up to myself, came home and packed the miracle suit. I’m bound to bump into someone I know, at the beach.

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