The rise and fall of the bikini confidence

Today was an anomaly and then a disaster.

Last night, I started packing to go home/packing for Thailand and I tried on my bathing suit from this past summer. It was tighter than I remembered (thank you so much, grad school stress!). I felt icky in it and, honestly, a bit devastated that in such a short time I had outgrown my suit.

This morning, I woke up, felt GREAT about my body and decided to run with it and go find a new bathing suit. I was instantly reminded of one of my favorite tweets by Paula Pell:

I headed straight to Target, the enchanting place that does not exist in Vermont and will therefore be forever exciting for me. Once there, I beelined for the bathing suits (blindsiding my peripherals so I didn't get distracted and buy the whole store like I usually do). Picked out a bunch, hit the dressing rooms, and BOOM. One trip to the fitting room and 15 minutes later, I FOUND A BATHING SUIT I LOVE. It's a dark purple two-piece that made me feel awesome. I spent $40 on it, which is almost a week's worth of groceries, but I can justify that if I'm going to feel like a beach goddess. And do y'all know how rare it is for me (and every other woman I know) to actually want to go bathing suit shopping? And do you know how rare it is to actually find a good bathing suit without having to store-hop to 5 different places? And do you know how many trips back and forth from the fitting rooms it takes before you finally find "the one?" Today was actually a miracle. A Christmas miracle.

But then this evening, a friend of mine posted a picture from her vacation and her abs made my jaw drop. My earlier self confidence plummeted and it felt like I was falling alllllll the way back to square one in my body acceptance journey.

And that's what it's like, folks. Body acceptance is hard. It's hard to look at someone else and not compare yourself to them. It's hard to maintain your self-love when your perceived flaws are sometimes what you see first. It's a constant battle to appreciate my body the way it is instead of hating it for what it is not.

I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow or the next day and be back to feeling like a beach goddess, so I'm not really at square one and I'm not worried about staying stuck here. It's an ebb and flow. But goddamn. I can't wait until the day I can desensitize to things like this.

Movie Dates with Self.

There is really nothing as wonderful as going to the movies by yourself. Especially matinees. They're cheap, usually empty, and then when it's over, the day is still young and there's time to sneak into another movie. It is a win/win situation.

I took myself on a date to see Interstellar yesterday and it was exactly what I needed. I must look like a crazy lady every time I go. I bring a huge tote bag full of snacks (twizzlers, corn nuts, chocolate covered peanuts, microwavable popcorn, dried mango and pineapple, etc), a bigass scarf to wrap around myself because 1) it always gets cold, and 2) it's comforting to mummify yourself in the dark, and then I let myself feel everything that comes across the screen. Everything. For example, the emotions started up early yesterday when a holiday commercial came on before the trailers and it was so happy and family-oriented, I just stared tearing up. If you've made it this far into the paragraph, I bet you'll never go with me to the movies ever again. That's fine, I'll just keep going by myself.

Interstellar was absolutely stellar. It was almost 3 hours of edge-of-your-seat peril with some family sappiness thrown in. I cried quite a bit. When I go see a movie by myself, there's no one next to me judging me about how choked up I get when people break up or if someone's in danger or how I start bouncing around everywhere when something nerve-wracking is happening. I mean, there are people judging me, but who gives an eff, I don't know them. Let them watch me stuff snacks into my face and listen to me audibly gasp and sob when something goes wrong.

I LOVE IT. I LOVE THE  MOVIES.