Yep...I had a good run.
It's over, now.
I went bathing suit shopping, and the result was discouraging.
I'm not "that girl" anymore, I'm "that woman". I'm "Ma'am". It's official.
I will miss the youth and all the perks of knowing I could eat anything I wanted and wear anything at all.
I can still wear clothes, but that is now limited to "full coverage".
I have never been defined by my looks, per se.
Some people are surprised by the amount of confidence I've always had and I think that confidence is a result of not really worrying about my looks.
I guess there are certain rights of passage that we all must go through. Summer is a time when these types of passages occur for me.
Summers of childhood were long and hot. The grass was always really green where I grew up and there was a lot of clover in the yards. I spent time outside in a neighborhood in Wappingers Falls NY from about my 10th or 11th summer. We played kickball, and I had a crush on the boy down the street. I was the skinniest girl on the block...almost famous for being really skinny with a really grown up "big girl" singing voice. I also had tons of hair
Those were innocent, lovely times.
Memories of Adolescence are accompanied by Summer Adventures, too. I remember the smells and sights of the world awakening in a new way as I fell in what can only be described as "First Love" and shared long days with boy who I remember fondly. The music of those summers still takes me there and I am always happy to be still in those moments of sweet memories. Summer Love lasted into the Fall and Winter of those years, and when that first love faded, summers became filled with friendships that last til this day. Summers spent getting ready in the evenings to go out dancing with my "gang". Showing up at the club with my girlfriends, sharing the same fake i.d. hoping for a glimpse of the guys we had crushes on and thinking we looked real cute in our outfits. We knew we turned heads and that made it so much more fun.
Summer of High School Graduation brings back all the memories of the heady feelings of having my whole life ahead of me and wanting it to get started already. Summer at the Shore with my best friends living it up as carefree as one could be. It was truly the Summer of total freedom. We still bore people with tales of our adventures as we lived life on the edge of what was going to be acceptable come Summer's end and we would all go our seperate ways. I was still in a "regular" bathing suit then...I remember seeing women in the Old Lady Bathing Suits and thinking, that they must have let themselves go...turns out, they did.
They let themselves go to their lives...to their kitchens, to their kid's schools as volunteers. They let themselves go to the size that required maternity clothes and back to regular clothes and back to maternity clothes again if they were lucky.
Maybe they let themselves go to the doctor and heard bad news and had to let themselves go to Chemotherapy and Radiation. They let themselves go to a place of healing and let themselves go to a place deep down inside that they didn't even know existed until they had to fight for the chance to let themselves go some more.
They let themselves go to fine restaurants every once in a while and maybe one great vacation or more over the years. Maybe they let themselves go to Paris once, or to a Graduation Party for their oldest son. They let themselves go to reunions with friends that always revolve around a meal. They let themselves go to New York City to live it up every once in a while and eat fancy food and drink good wine.
They let themselves go home to the house that they created and to the warmth of being married, happily for what feels like 100 years. 100 years that passed in the blink of an eye until one day they went shopping and had to buy "the Old Lady Bathing Suit".
I am so very happy that I "let myself go" if this is the place I have gone. I love Summer.
That was beautifully said. :)
ReplyDelete