Of Bikini Season, and Why I Wont be Wearing One

As the snow melts, and cool mornings change to warm afternoons, it seems everyone's minds are on summer.  With that has come many advertisements for diet programs and gym memberships, urging women to get their bodies ready for bikini season, while there's still time.  I've read a few blog posts and articles in response to this, mostly saying women shouldn't feel pressured by the world to look a certain way. It's wrong to objectify women, and it's terrible to suggest unhealthy ideas of beauty.  I've agreed with all these brave authors, making a positive stand with their words.  But there is something missing from all these articles.

Why the bikini at all?

Why has this become the accepted trend?  They aren't comfortable.  They slip and slide into all the wrong places.  Women are constantly at risk of having something fall out, or showing more than she intended to, despite there being little left to show.  They aren't pretty either, in that they really aren't much of anything.  It's a few strings, and 4 triangles of fabric.  It's not the bikini that people are looking at anyway.  It's the naked body.  Wearing a bikini is about as close to walking around naked as you can get without being charged with indecent exposure.

Maybe it makes a woman feel sexy.  After all, the term "sexy" is alluding to being ready for sex.  Sex is traditionally an activity done in the nude.  A bikini is nearly nude.  So yeah, I can see why it would make a woman, or man looking at her, feel ready for sex.

We live in a day where sex is everywhere.  We walk, talk, dress, and sing that it's ok to look and feel sexy.  It's ok for everyone to look at you, and want sex.  It's desirable, it's empowering.

Call me prude, or weird, or even old fashioned, but I don't like that.  I don't want men or women to look at me, and think of calisthenics in the bedroom.  I don't feel empowered if I find out someone had dirty thoughts about me.  I'm confident in my sexuality.  I enjoy that part of my life.  But only with my husband.  It's not something I wish to share with anyone else.  I don't even want to suggest the idea to someone else.

Now, of course I can't control the thoughts of everyone around me.  Someone could have a dirty fantasy of a very modestly dressed man or woman.  But I'm not going to encourage or suggest it with what I wear.  That's not a goal of mine- to provoke sexual feelings in those that look at me.  I find no sense of accomplishment in that.

So let's replace "sexy" with "beautiful".  Some would argue a woman's body is very beautiful, and she has every right to display it to anyone she wants to.  I don't agree with this.  I do think every woman is beautiful.  And while we are all given the freedom to choose what we do with our bodies, and that may be her right, I do not think it is right for a woman to display it to everyone.  This is because I do not believe our bodies are our own.  I believe they are a gift from God.  When someone has trusted me with something precious, I am careful with it, because I want it returned in good condition.

Let's make a simple analogy, to illustrate this idea.  Say a good, trusting friend loans me her car.  I am not going to take unnecessary risks with it, like speeding or breaking traffic laws.  I will do my best to keep it clean, both inside and out.  I will keep it well maintained until she needs it back.  Most importantly, I will closely follow the instructions she gave me.  If she specifically asked me not to eat in the car, I wont.  I wont even rationalize that I'd be safe drinking a smoothie in it, as long as I'm careful.  She gave me the car, I am grateful, so I will do as she has asked.  When I give those keys back, I want our friendship to be even better than it was before.  I love her for being so kind and generous to me, and she is impressed with the care I took with something valuable of hers.  Our trust in each other has grown, and therefore so has the strength in our relationship.

Now let's compare this to our relationship with God.  He has given me this body.  I try to treat it with great care.  I do not put harmful things in it.  I keep it maintained with exercise and healthy living.  I also keep it appropriately covered.  I believe God communicates with us.  He has given us specific, set rules on how to take care of this gift he has given us.  I wont wear a bikini, because he has asked me not to.  There are more modest choices for swimwear, and he has asked me to dress modestly.  He wants me to protect and keep covered what is beautiful, and doesn't want me to share every inch of that beauty with just anyone.  Specific instruction has been given to share all of my body with just one person, my spouse.  A bikini isn't quite baring all, but it's close.  It's like drinking the smoothie in my friends car, when she told me not to eat in it.  I don't plan to rationalize that line, even if it's a close technicality.

Now, a nasty rumor has gone around that women use modesty as an excuse to hide fat.  Some will say that if a woman is thin, and in good shape, she has no reason to stay covered, and wouldn't, therefore if someone is dressing modestly, she's really just lazy, and doesn't have anything to show off.  Let's put a stop to that right now, because that is a shameful lie, so obviously created by shallow men, looking to guilt women into taking off more layers.  Covering up a little more does not mean you are less attractive, or have something to hide.  Allow me to be a walking example of that.  I'm a skinny girl.  I'm one of those rare, obnoxious women who stays thin no matter what I eat, or how many babies I have.  I do try to exercise and eat well, but I'll admit my physique is not due to my efforts.  It just is.  I can no more control it than I can control the shape of my nose.  I have no fat to hide, and probably never will.  And yet still I feel no more beautiful in a string bikini than I would in a modest dress.

I feel beautiful without showing too much skin.  I feel a glowing sense of who I am, and a pride in the blessing of my body, without everyone within eyesight seeing nearly every inch of me.  I feel confident knowing I am abiding by the rules the maker of my body has set, and displaying only what he has said is modest.  My relationship with God is strengthened when I take good care of this gift he has given me.

Don't let the world tell you what is beautiful.  Remember who made the world, and who made you.  His relationship, his guidance, and his ideas, are always the best, and I have never regretted following them, no matter what the trends and ideas around me are.

See ya'll at the pool, and if I'm lucky this summer, the beach.  I'll be the one in a pink swim top that covers my torso, and white shorts that completely hide my butt from the sun, surrounded by three pretty little blondes plastered in sunscreen.  You can't miss us.    

From our cruise last year, not with the kids. 

       

Love is clumsy

I suffer from an overactive imagination.  I use the word "suffer" because while I love that about me, it can also be a curse.  I love how with little effort I can picture beautiful places in detail, entertain myself throughout the day with my own little stories I make up, and can get completely lost in a book or movie.  It's fun, I love that.  But it's a curse, because the world we live in now, is nothing like my imagination.

I know I'm not alone.  We all picture things a certain way, and then are so surprised when that picture wasn't even close to reality.  Will Smith sums it up perfectly in one line, in this scene from the movie Hitch.


Sometimes we imagine too much, don't we?  I do it almost everyday!!  Here's a common example maybe some of you know.  I prepare a picnic for the kids and I to eat at the park, and as I load up the stroller, imagine butterflies, happy giggles, and rainbows.  I can see it all!  My sweet children are so happy to be there, love me for taking them, are refreshed by the outdoors and healthy playtime, and I get to lay back on the picnic blanket, basking in the "motherhood is wonderful" sunshine.  Of course, as you can guess, I'm shocked when in real life, the kids don't want any of the food I prepared, get cranky and argue with each other, sunburn despite my careful, tedious sunscreen efforts before we left, find more ways to get dirty than I thought possible, each take turns crying on the way home, and when we still have a mile left to walk, are stuck in an unexpected downpour of rain.  Like Will Smith said, "I imagined that going differently in my mind."

Maybe it's because I not only have a vast imagination (I get that from my Dad) but I'm also easy to feel and express emotion (I get that from my mom).  So a beautiful scene from a book or movie, or even something I think or dream about, not only is wonderful, but tends to have an emotional effect on me too.  I love what I hear/see/feel, and I want it to be real!  I know you're probably thinking you're much too mature to get lost in such silliness- but think for a moment, my friends.  Remember that one movie, where you were grateful for the dark theater so no one could see you quickly swipe away a tear?  I realize I suffer from a worse case than most of the imagination-turned-emotional disorder, but don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.  I know you do.

My most recent guilty moment of getting too caught up in the world of daydreams, was when I heard Blake Shelton's song, Home, play on the radio.  Go on, listen to it.  Let yourself feel the love!



I felt the love a little too much when I heard this song.  Big crocodile tears rolled down my cheeks, I thought of deployments and sometimes how lonely I can feel, and pathetically said to myself, "I so badly want my husband to say those words to me!"

Then I took it a step further, and pictured what it'd be like if he did say those things to me. I even went so far as to imagine him secretly taking guitar lessons, learning the words to the song, and then serenading me after a quiet romantic dinner at home.  It was beautiful!

It was also ridiculous.  Life is not a music video.  How we feel about the people we love is so difficult to put into words, not to mention having them on hand at the exact moment when they need to be heard.  Some people spend their whole lives working on turning that very problem into an art.  Poets, authors, musicians, and artists of all kinds find ways to put emotion onto the page.  But it takes tedious hours, rewrites, drafts, patience, and practice.  Behind those dream worthy moments are mistakes, clumsiness, and great effort.

The more I thought about my silly daydream of my husband singing to me, the more I realized it wasn't really what I want.  I have what I want.  I have someone who does work tedious long hours for me.  He's patient with me, and we both patiently wait for those days when we can be together.  We forgive mistakes, we practice being thoughtful, considerate, and sympathetic to each other.  Those long days of effort and work are what make something beautiful, something sweet, even something dream worthy.

Will Smith also suavely says in Hitch that "Life is about the moments, that take your breath away".

It's a romantic thought, but I don't agree.  Life isn't about those short lived moments.  It's about the clumsy ones that got you there.  It's about saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.  It's about feeling bad because you forgot something important, or feeling embarrassed because you didn't handle a situation right.  Life is waiting when you don't want to, enduring when you're tired, listening even when you're feeling distracted.  It's about patience with misscommunication, and forgiveness of imperfection.  It's about sleepy, late nights, small acts of kindness that sometimes inevitably go unappreciated, and showing devotion even when you're feeling lonely.  It's about experiencing all those things, and loving anyway.  Perhaps those short moments of breathless excitement are fun, and memorable.  But they are empty without the clumsy ones that come before and afterwords.

If you added up all the thousands of tiny sighs where I felt special because of the things my husband has done for me, (and that's not even counting the little things I forgot to notice!) I'd be more than out of breath.  I'd probably even romantically swoon from all that sweet, wonderful, clumsy love.  But because this is real life, he'd probably be too surprised to catch me, and we'd smile and comment about how we'd laugh about it someday.  We'd say that confidently, knowing for sure, despite all those imperfect, awkward moments, that the someday will be there, and in that someday we'll still be together, still making dreams.