The horror! The horror!
Fears and self-criticisms hidden by sweaters and jeans during winter are now visible in daylight. To many women (and to men as well, I suspect), exposing certain body parts to the eyes of others can be as unseemly as bringing cave-dwelling creatures to twitch and scramble unexpectedly in the sunlight.
Every person has his or her own maligned and disliked body parts. There are scars, stretchmarks; there is too much fat, too little tone; this area is too thin, that one too hairy; there are effects of years and gravity that we cannot control. No one is spared from these insecurities, especially Herself.
Herself struggles frustratedly to find a bathing suit that covers that which should be covered, and reveals some, but not too much, of what can be revealed. She tries on suit after suit, attempting to look at herself in the mirror only long enough to ascertain whether she can be seen in public in that particular garment. If she looks too long, she becomes much too aware of her own flaws and shortcomings, and all hope of finding a tolerable bathing suit is lost.
She recalls wistfully the days when a bathing suit was nothing more than another piece of clothing, to be selected easily off of a rack in any store and worn with carefree cheer. She wishes that she could feel that confident again, but knows those times are long past. She confesses that what pains her most is that she still harbors what seems to her to be an unacceptable vanity: the wish to know that other people find her attractive. It should not matter, she tells herself. How self-centered, how frivolous, how ridiculous she is, she thinks.
And yet, how very human, I think.
We will try to remember:
Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical. - Sophia Loren
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