We’re heading to the beach soon.  I went through my summer clothes and swimsuits today to determine the answer to a very important question:  what still fits?  I hadn’t worn any of it last summer since I was in maternity clothing at the time, so it had been awhile!  I found my swimsuits and realized that one of them was falling apart a bit.  It still fit fine, but the fibers were dying from being subjected to pool chemicals for the past 7 or so years that I’ve owned it.  Time to buy a new swimsuit!

For you men out there, this might not seem like a big deal.  It is.  If you don’t want to know, just stop reading now.  For you women out there, this story may sound very familiar.  Or it may sound completely foreign.  If foreign, go through a pregnancy… even better, a twin pregnancy, and then re-read. 🙂

For starters, any full body clothing item has always been hard for me to shop for.  I’m different sizes top to bottom, so one-piece swimsuits and dresses are tricky!  I have to be careful that one half doesn’t get too tight while the other half looks like a tent.  As a result, I prefer shopping for separates and even then, I end up with 2 armloads of options in the dressing room and I’m lucky to go home with 1-3 purchases.  This is partially because I have never been the average build and partially because I refuse to buy anything that isn’t severely on sale, so I have limited options.  Swimsuit shopping is the gauntlet of one piece shopping (even two piece swimsuits tend to come as a set).  Swimsuit shopping after a pregnancy?  Let’s just say I should have stuck with my worn out swimsuit from the past 7 years!

I built in some pressure to help myself get through it.  My favorite show is on at 7pm.  It’s 6:24pm.  I just have to crank this out and find any one item that is remotely passable and get back home.  I’ll watch the end of my show, Matt will tape the beginning, and I’ll be motivated to just get it done.  So I went to TJMaxx.  I perused the swimwear aisle.  I realized I’m a larger size than I was previously, but that’s fine!  I gave birth to twins, it’s okay to have a new post-birth body type! I grabbed 8 suits and a few dresses and sandals on the way to the dressing room.  This is where the psychological warfare sets in.

1.  A very sweet salesgirl informs me that I can only have 8 items.  No, I cannot bring the sandals in even though I want to see them with the swimwear.  She’ll allow me to leave them here and I can come back for them when I’m ready to make a trade.  They just build in the inevitable reality that something on the hangers in your hand isn’t going to work out and then you can “upgrade” to your stash outside the dressing room.
2.  The bright fluorescent light is making my nice blonde hair look gray, sickly, and abysmal.  And I just had my hair done today, so that makes no sense.  Why do I look sick?  Why are the colors changing tints all of a sudden?
3.  Why is this mirror from the house of horrors at the fair?

To spare you every painful detail, I’ll just say I had to go back to the racks THREE times to give myself more options.  Here is my question:  when did I get blobby?  I used to be svelte, curvy, I liked how I looked.  Sure it was hard to shop for swimsuits before, but oh my, what is THAT?  And when did THAT happen???  Why are my curves front to back now instead of side to side???  I discarded all the dress and shoe options… for some reason, I was drawn toward clothing that does nothing for me.  I guess I didn’t used to need clothing to do something for me because I did it on my own?  Those days appear to be over!  I narrowed the swimsuits down to 3 (the third I found on my third and most desperate visit to the rack).  Option #1 is the cute, stripey number.  It’s pink and chocolate brown and white and lime green, in varying widths of stripes and it feels like my actual age.  But horizontal stripes just put my new post-pregnancy belly in neon lights that say, “Look here!”  Option #2 is a matronly navy blue… dark and shadowed with fabric directionality and bunches in all the right places to say, “Look at these curves here and DON’T look at that bulge!  Back this way… yes, look at that.”  Option #3 has a skirt.  You know, the whole “hide my thighs, I’m a middled-aged tired mommy.”  I’m a young tired mommy, thank you very much!!!

Now, I like Option 1 but it is too big and has the poorly guided stripes and neon lights.  I like Option 2 fine, but it is the most expensive and I feel like it makes me look far older than my actual nearly 30 years old.  I suppose it did the most for my figure, but I was getting alot of extra help and I don’t WANT help from a swimsuit.  I just want to be me.  And Option 3 has a skirt… a SKIRT!  I’m not old enough for that either!  And darn it, my show is on, and I’m stuck in the psychological warfare dressing room from hell looking at crappy options that make me want to run home to the comfort of a carton of ice cream!

I’ll shame myself by admitting that I bought the one with the skirt because it had a fun print and I looked the cutest in it.  Matt likes short skirts, so I’m sure he’ll approve, as long as it doesn’t make him feel old to be married to someone who wears a skirted swimsuit.  <sigh>  It was so depressing.  I blame my early post-partum days!  I was so sick during my first week of being a mother that I returned to my pre-pregnancy weight in 10 days!  I was thin and happy and recovering and life was crazy, but I was thin and happy and recovering!  Slowly, I put some extra weight back on, then faster because I got depressed about giving up breast-feeding and turned to handfuls of chocolate chips.  It isn’t about the number on the scale… I just feel controlled by food and I miss some of my old clothes.  And tonight’s experience highlighted that loss of control in those neon lights I already mentioned.  I can definitely do better at being healthy without giving up essentials like ice cream.  All in all, I’m proud to have my babies and it’s okay that you can tell I’m a mom just by looking at me.  So, cheers to you, from a skirted beach goer such as myself!