For The First Time

This is the first summer of my adult life that I went swimsuit shopping and didn't spend weeks trying on suits and getting depressed.

It's the first summer I went suit shopping one day and liked every single one I put on and my struggle was picking just one. 

This is the first summer I went out in public in my bathing suit and just walked around like normal. I didn't keep a cover up on, I didn't constantly adjust myself or the suit. I went to a beach this weekend and swam with my kids and then came on shore and played with them. And then sat in a chair and ate some snacks and watched the boys play.

I do not have a perfect body. Not by a long shot. At the beach next to us, there was a group of twenty-something college kids, with a handful of very very tan, thin-ish blonde girls in bikinis. They very well may have been looking at my white dimpled thighs and mocking what becomes of the bodies of women who have children. 

Even though my body isn't the definition of perfect, I'm really proud of where it is. Strangers may look at me and not realize that I worked really  hard for this imperfection, and I guess that's ok. At least I know.

Being not self-conscious for the first time makes it all worth it.