Michael and I are in Cleveland this weekend so that I can serve as godmother to my best friend's daughter in her baptism tomorrow. I have been anticipating this day for about four years, since Noelle told me that they were going to start a family soon and they wanted me to be the godmother when they had a child. Tomorrow is the day, and I'm honored to be a part of it. Tomorrow will be a wet and wonderful day for Miss Temperance Holly Huddleston.
Tonight, I had my own important experience with water, in a very different way (and, I should add, not nearly as important as Temperance's will be!). I had looked on the website of the hotel we are staying in to see if they had a hot tub, and didn't see anything, but it turns out, they do! So tonight, when we checked in early after spending the afternoon with Noelle and her family, Michael and I went to a nearby Walmart to get cheap swimming suits that we could wear in that blessed pool of hot, bubbly water.
It didn't occur to me until we walked out of the store that this should have been a much more emotionally wrought occasion than it was. It was not only my first time wearing a swimming suit with my new rack, but also my first time buying a swimming suit with a totally new upper body. Perhaps the would-be anxiety about that was trumped by the anxiety that always surrounds buying a swim suit, especially in winter when Northeast bodies are not, shall we say, properly prepared for such exposure (*ahem*). So all I was thinking about was getting something with good coverage on the bottom (they had little shorts - yay!), and the fact that I didn't need something that would offer any support on top (since I now have self-supporting boobies - yay again!).
Of course, the cheapest suits were the little teeny-bopper type, and though support was not an issue, the first little top I tried on had some coverage issues - that little triangle of fabric was not nearly enough to cover the scars on my "sizeable" new breasts, and no amount of sparkles made it so. (Yes, it's true - although I would never consider getting a suit because it had sparkles on it, I did look at this option this time because I figured I'm probably only going to wear it once anyway, and the only person I know at the hotel is Michael so I didn't care who might judge me!) But then I found a top that was more of a band across the front and a little halter-top style tie, and it had enough fabric on the sides to cover my assortment of scars. Done!
So we went back to the hotel (and got stuck in a mess of snow in the parking lot - I pushed us out while Michael rocked back and forth, since the car is a manual and while I can manage in a manual in the best of conditions, this was not one of those times). Having thus earned our hot tub time, I put on my new suit, and realized I had not been at all traumatized by the experience of buying it. Michael was gracious enough to tell me I looked gorgeous (repeatedly), and to watch out for any scar slippage. I guess while nip-slip is no longer a concern, scar-slip now is. And we had a perfectly lovely time in the hot tub... and newbie boobies even looked good.
I know many women who get mastectomies need to get special swimming suits, so I'm grateful I'm not in that boat. I'm also grateful that, while I do still have a fair amount of self-consciousness about myself in a swimming suit (unfortunately, what woman doesn't?), I felt okay about it today. I guess I was just thinking about what my body went through to get to where it is today, and was so immensely grateful that not only am I here to tell the tale, but also that all things considered, I look pretty darn good. Suddenly my soccer thighs aren't quite as big a deal as they once were, and "a little extra" where I don't think there should be is just a sign of health and having enough, and lily white skin is because I take care of my skin and don't expose it to even more possibility cancer (that, and the fact that Rochesterians scarcely see the sun from October to April). The only person I really care what he thinks about how I look is the man who repeatedly tells me I look gorgeous when I feel the least gorgeous, and he really, truly means it. So what do I care beyond that? I certainly don't feel any need to defend this body - it has worked hard for its life, after all! So there, body image issues!
Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering... no, the implants don't float. :)
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