Riding roller coasters and going down water slides has inspired me to finally, *finally* order contact lenses. Plus driving in sunshine without sunglasses is very painful for me.
Maybe I’ll get around to ordering a new bathing suit sometime soon, too.
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I have a one-piece suit that I wore one summer after one of my babies. It’s not very current.
Bathing suits don’t really fit me that well. I have no boobs. I don’t mean I have small boobs. I have NO BOOBS. Pregnancy and breast feeding ruined them and I went from a barely-an-A cup to… long nipples, basically. Bathing suits simply exacerbate my boob-less appearance.
Here’s the thing, though: I don’t really care.
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Dan is very self conscious in a bathing suit. He complains all the time about going swimming with the kids, and he complained about going to the water park this past weekend.
But once he gets in the water with the kids, he has so much fun. He loves swimming, he loves water slides, he loves his kids.
So when he started complaining about how he looked in a bathing suit this weekend, I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Dan, sweetie, no one’s looking at you.”
I have a 40-year-old body that has delivered four kids. While I may be rocking a normal, not-pregnant weight, my muscle tone is pretty crappy, and I have a saggy butt and cellulite.
Ain’t no one looking at me, either.
Believe me when I say that this way of thinking is extremely freeing. I still wish I exercised regularly — or at all — but even when I do start exercising again? It’s going to be so I feel good, not so I look good for other people at the water park.
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As long as my husband finds me attractive (all indications are that he still does), and as long as I am in decent health (exercise would make me healthier), then I’m not overly fashed about my appearance in a bathing suit. As to Dan’s appearance, I worry less about how he looks than I do about his heart health. Dan is a very handsome man, and, yeah, he needs to lose some weight.
But my heart depends on his heart. So that’s why I would like him to exercise, and eat better. Not so he’s rocking a 20-year-old hardbody.
That would just be an added benefit. *wink wink*
Red Pen Mama 
Just a note that our society *greatly* underestimates and/or ignores men’s problems with body image, particularly in the MTV Buff-o-Matic era. I share Dan’s pain.
Buff-o-matic made me laugh.
Your comment is interesting, and I’ll probably email you on this a little more, especially regarding your tweets, too. I think about television, and how so many sitcoms have heavier men married to hot wives (i.e. Kevin James in King of Queens).
But yes, in general, men’s body issues are ignored. I think maybe the assumption is men don’t care — or are portrayed as not supposed to care. Women are supposed to be obsessed with our bodies, on the other hand. I don’t want to play that game, and I certainly don’t want my daughters to play it. That’s why I really do try to focus on feeling good and being healthy. And when I say to my husband, “No one is looking at you,” I don’t mean to be mean. I’m just trying to get him past that self-consciousness.
Yep… gravity’s a bitch. I can still see my toes, but I’m not saying I don’t have to tilt a bit…
I can’t believe the only two comments on this post came from MEN! Oh, well. Thanks for the giggle. I think it’s more important maybe to be able to reach your toes. Seeing is optional as long as you don’t have to tilt too far.
My mom didn’t OWN a bathing suit until she took a water aerobics class (around age 70.) In her 30s and 40s, she always said she had no business appearing in public in a swimsuit. My answer to that was, and still is: if you want to swim, you have as much right as anyone else. (Like you told Dr. Dan, nobody is looking anyway.)