Dear Bathing Suits,
     I have hated all of you with a deep and unrelenting hatred. Hanging there in the department store on your cute little hangers with your cute little matching wraps taunting me with your spandexy and small selves. There was no part of me that looked good in you. Lumps and rolls and bumps of me oozed out from every corner of you. And those of you that boasted "LOSE TEN PoUNDS IN TEN SECONDS! NEW MIRACLE FABRIC!"   Liars - all of you. All that magic fabric does is lift the fat from one area and shove it around to somplace else. In the past whenever I wore a bathing suit, I would put the thing on - that in itself a series of violent tugging, swearing, and sweating - and then simply never look down at myself or in any kind of reflective surface. Who needs to see all of that exploding out? But as the sun pours down on me here in upstate New York, as the crocuses show their deep purple blossoms and the daffodils begin to awake, I'm beginning to change my mind about you. Perhaps this summer I will happily wear a bathing suit. Perhaps this summer I will look at my bathing suited self in the mirror.  I'm sure that here will still be this part and that part that aren't and may never be perfect. But it won't be an explosion of overstuffed body parts. Just a regular sized person swimming and boating and sunning. 
     So get ready all of you bandeaus and tankinis - one day soon I shall pluck you off your rack and take you home with me.
Love,
E