365 True Things: 130/Swimsuit

Tomorrow I'm going stand-up paddleboarding with some friends, and that reminded me that I'll need to wear a swimsuit. The last time I put on my swimsuit—which must be, oh, thirty years ago; okay, maybe only twenty-five—it was, er, a tad tight. Like I've gained weight or something.

Alas, this is true: I have. Over the past six or seven years. Not a lot, but enough that some of my pants are no longer comfortable.

I keep meaning to, I don't know—diet, exercise . . . something, to address this issue. Simply hoping things go back to normal doesn't seem to be working.

But today, the fact remained that I don't really want to wear my old swimsuit tomorrow.

So I went out and shopped for a new one.

I hate to shop in the first place, but shopping for a swimsuit has got to be one of the most humbling activities there is.

No

I guessed on a size and wriggled into a few suits. They were okay. I finally settled on one with a gray stripy pattern—like a tiger shark, maybe. Good for fending off tiger sharks, if not other sorts of sharks. But then I checked the size and saw it was mislabeled on the hanger and, yep, one size larger than the others I'd been trying on.

That explained why it fit.

So I went out and perused the rack, picked out a couple more in the new size—and voilà: I found one I actually like!

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Now I'm looking forward even more to stand-up paddle-boarding. Not that anyone will see me in my lovely new blue swimsuit, since I'll be wearing a wetsuit over it. But I'll know that, as things go—I'm not exactly a twenty-year-old bombshell, after all—my body is fine. A little finer if the swimsuit in fact fits.

But that's just looks. More important, my body is strong and healthy, and that is really what matters. On some counts, it's probably stronger and healthier than the bodies of many people half my age. I'm grateful for that. I hope it stays that way a while longer.