Day Twenty-Four

I failed to mention a few posts back that I recently bought a bathing suit. Maybe this sounds like a normal thing for you and most other people. Let me attempt to explain how HUGELY not normal this was for me.

Growing up, I spent many a summer at my grandparents place in Bullhead City, Arizona. It's a town big on watersports, both on the river and the nearby lake. As a child and in my early teens, I was thin...skinny legs, not much fat to speak of. So I would buy a new bathing suit (sometimes two) each year and bask in the sun at every opportunity. When we weren't in Bullhead, I could usually be found at my grandparents house, spending hours on end in their backyard pool.

Then puberty hit. Fat cells starting popping up in the places they should, and in the places they shouldn't. From that point on, weight was pretty much a struggle and a very sore subject. Shopping became an embarrassment, and a bathing suit was out of the question, at least without wearing a tank top over it.

So it's been about 15 years since I've owned a bathing suit and equally as long since I've been swimming, basically anywhere. I haven't felt like I was missing out all these years or anything. But now I have a son, and he's old enough to experience lots of new things, including fun in the water.

So Jon and I were walking in the mall a couple of weeks ago and I took a look at the bathing suit rack, mainly because everything was marked down. Not planning to try anything on, I was taken by surprise to find not one but three suits in my size. With some anxiety, I took them into the dressing room and found one that I truly like. One that is almost flattering! It felt like a bold step to not only try it on, but to buy it. Jon, who is the only person that REALLY knows me inside and out, was proud at the fact that I even tried it on. And he was thrilled that I found a suit I loved.

Today, for the first time in half my lifetime, I went swimming in my grandparents pool. It was such a different but amazing experience. My husband and son were there, Isaiah's first time in a real pool. My heart swelled watching him kick and splash and laugh hysterically. I think Jon and I even got in an activity point or two from swimming. My aunt and cousins played in the water with us and my grandparents looked on with pride at the sight of their first great-grandchild experiencing the water for the first time. The same water that I (their first grandchild) adored so long ago.

And the moral of the story is: not once did I think about my weight, or how I looked. I just soaked in the sun and the love and the opportunity to appreciate family. And that's the way it should be.