The Year of the One Piece

1999 was the year of the string bikini. Up until that point, I had been quite modest in terms of dress (and pretty much every other term, I suppose). I wasn’t exactly ashamed of my body, but I certainly wasn’t a big enough fan of it to go parading around in my skivvies either. Until this one day.

This particular day, en route to the make-up aisle, a multi-color striped triangle string bikini with hot pink trim caught my eye. It hung from a metal T-stand at Walmart(!). Above it, that creepy yellow smiley face and a $5 sign. Not sure if it was boredom or frugality that led me to the fitting room, but somehow I ended up there, bikini in hand. What I expected to see when I looked in the mirror was the sluttiest of all sluts wearing an official slut suit. What I actually saw was a girl dressed to enjoy fun summer activities in or around a body of water. Hm. I performed my usual battery of fitting room tests: the bend forward, the bend backwards, the sit-to-stand, the full body shakedown, the James Brown spin (my husband actually witnessed this one while standing outside my dressing room one day and he will never let me forget), and finally, the high knees. It passed. I wore it for three summers in a row. Each time I wore it I felt more liberated, more free.

Fast forward one decade and two children later and looking like a slut was the least of my swimwear-related issues. Where a flat 4-pack once lived was now a soft mound of flesh and torn muscle. The perkiness that once filled those two striped triangles had since inflated to ungodly proportions, nourished 2 children for over a year, and were now deflated past their original state. In three words: That s%^& sucked. In my head, I thought about how much worse it could have been. After all, the rest of me remained more or less intact. And I had gained two perfect human beings in exchange for this new body. But nonetheless, at 29-years-old I found myself considering the unthinkable – the tankini. For me the tankini always symbolized the fear of letting go of the string bikini days and the rebellion against the dreaded one-piece we all eventually have to wear; riding the fence, in bathing suit limbo, not fooling anyone. Knowing that, I purchased my first solid black Old Navy tankini. I never wore black. It didn’t matter. I wore it for three summers in a row.

The summer after my 31st birthday, after surviving my most trying year as a stay-at-home mom, after conquering skydiving, after finally coming to terms with the fact that I am not nor ever will be the 19-year-old girl in the Walmart mirror, I braved the bikini once again. Not because my body had improved since the tankini (it hadn’t; it still hasn’t), but because I once really enjoyed bikinis. And the only thing that had kept me from wearing them was worry that others would judge me and my mushy midriff. And that reason alone was just unacceptable.

The days leading up to my post-twins bikini debut were spent scoping out the moms at the YMCA pool, quietly feeding myself affirmations like, “See, if she can wear one, so can you.” I eventually snapped out of this mindset, reminding myself that comparing myself to others defeated the entire purpose of doing this.

A few days later I did it. I’m pretty sure the whole thing happened in slow motion and I vaguely remember hearing “Gimme Shelter” playing in the background. Off came the shorts. Off came the t-shirt. I manned up and prepared myself for a mob of distorted faces laughing hysterically while pointing at my exposed body. I waited. Nothing. I pranced over to the kiddie pool wearing my cloak of confidence and awaited the stares of disgust. Still nothing. Was the sun in their eyes? Was there an extra layer of clothing that I forgot to remove? Where were the jeers? The whispering? The endeavor was anticlimactic at best. I repeated that routine a few more times at the pool and once at the lake until the anxiety leading up to t-shirt removal diminished. It did and I am better for it.

So here I am on this first day of spring which may as well be the first day of summer, shopping for new swimwear. And my eyes are consistently gravitating towards the suits I’ve dreaded all these years. Yes, this just may be the year of the one-piece. And I am totally okay with that because this year, it will be my choice. It won’t be a social obligation, a band-aid for my imperfect body or because I’m too chicken to wear anything else.

But because they’re insanely chic these days.