I had a bit of a weird interaction today while shopping for a bathing suit and I wanted to share it with you all because... WELP, it fucking bothered me. Now, I haven't bought a new bikini in probably five or six years. There are many reasons for this, but chief among them is the fact that my old black one still fits juuuust fine. I decided that that excuse wasn't good enough for me anymore because I am a goddamn sexy twenty-five year old woman and I deserve better bathing suit habits than someone's spinster aunt.
So, on this rainy Friday morning, just ten short hours after crushing a 20 oz pint and a huge plate of poutine at the pub with my homies, I decided to take my bad self to the mall to try on some bikinis. I had previously avoided going into Swimco on my hunt because, even though that is where I got my last suit, they don't generally carry sizes above a D-cup and I have enormous cans. After not having much luck- and I'll be honest, I've been looking for months- I figured, I might as well just have a peak. I also made up my mind to let the sales associate help me. I KNOW, RIGHT? Yuck.
The baby-faced, summer employee greeted me and asked if I was having a "shopping day." I told her that, no, I was in fact solely here to find a new swim suit. Two sentences into this back and forth, no other information exchanged, she responded with:
"Oh, I see. Never a fun task."
And that made me so fucking furious.
I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. I must have put out some sort of discontented vibe or that she was just picking up on the extreme level of bone-deep exhaustion I have been operating on for months. But no matter what her intentions, all I heard was this:
The implication that I should be uncomfortable and hateful of my own body.
"Never a fun task to have to strip down in front of a full length mirror."
"Never a fun task to have shove your imperfect body into a swim suit."
"Never a fun task to have to face the results of months of working in a bakery, MEGAN."
Now, I have bad body image days, just like everyone else, and I'm really lucky that today wasn't one of those days.
Seriously, why do we say things like this to each other? To ourselves? Why do we, as a society, act like it's okay, normal even, to loath our beautiful bodies. We tell ourselves in all other aspects of our lives that perfection is unattainable, yet when it comes to the number on the scale, we fixate. We commiserate in our self-hatred. We bring a goddamn sexy twenty-five year old woman an all black one-piece with a "Guaranteed to make you look 10 lbs lighter" tag.
I am well aware that I am probably fifteen to twenty pounds over the "ideal weight." But guess what? I spent most of 2015 not being able to comfortably eat a full meal due to a pre-ulcerous condition I had developed as a result of my struggle with anxiety. That extra fifteen to twenty just show me that I'm finally able to enjoy eating honey cruellers again.
So, please, let's stop doing this to ourselves, to each other. We have one life, one body. Let's try loving the shit out of it. Eat that donut. Crush that beer. Wear a fucking bikini.
So, on this rainy Friday morning, just ten short hours after crushing a 20 oz pint and a huge plate of poutine at the pub with my homies, I decided to take my bad self to the mall to try on some bikinis. I had previously avoided going into Swimco on my hunt because, even though that is where I got my last suit, they don't generally carry sizes above a D-cup and I have enormous cans. After not having much luck- and I'll be honest, I've been looking for months- I figured, I might as well just have a peak. I also made up my mind to let the sales associate help me. I KNOW, RIGHT? Yuck.
The baby-faced, summer employee greeted me and asked if I was having a "shopping day." I told her that, no, I was in fact solely here to find a new swim suit. Two sentences into this back and forth, no other information exchanged, she responded with:
"Oh, I see. Never a fun task."
And that made me so fucking furious.
I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. I must have put out some sort of discontented vibe or that she was just picking up on the extreme level of bone-deep exhaustion I have been operating on for months. But no matter what her intentions, all I heard was this:
The implication that I should be uncomfortable and hateful of my own body.
"Never a fun task to have to strip down in front of a full length mirror."
"Never a fun task to have shove your imperfect body into a swim suit."
"Never a fun task to have to face the results of months of working in a bakery, MEGAN."
Now, I have bad body image days, just like everyone else, and I'm really lucky that today wasn't one of those days.
Seriously, why do we say things like this to each other? To ourselves? Why do we, as a society, act like it's okay, normal even, to loath our beautiful bodies. We tell ourselves in all other aspects of our lives that perfection is unattainable, yet when it comes to the number on the scale, we fixate. We commiserate in our self-hatred. We bring a goddamn sexy twenty-five year old woman an all black one-piece with a "Guaranteed to make you look 10 lbs lighter" tag.
I am well aware that I am probably fifteen to twenty pounds over the "ideal weight." But guess what? I spent most of 2015 not being able to comfortably eat a full meal due to a pre-ulcerous condition I had developed as a result of my struggle with anxiety. That extra fifteen to twenty just show me that I'm finally able to enjoy eating honey cruellers again.
So, please, let's stop doing this to ourselves, to each other. We have one life, one body. Let's try loving the shit out of it. Eat that donut. Crush that beer. Wear a fucking bikini.
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