today, my big butt & I went for a swim

photo from here

Growing up I was made painfully aware that certain assets of mine were more prominent than on other girls my age, or other women in general.

When I was about 13 a friend and I were strolling through the mall, as teens will do, when a herd of Latino men whistled at us, making weird faces, and then one of them made a motion I will never forget. He waved his hands in front of him, motioning the outline of something, moving wider and then narrow, then much wider, then narrow. He was motioning the outline shape of my body.

The much wider part, that would have been my hips.

Now, besides having a difficult time buying jeans, never even thinking about wearing a drop-waist anything I don't think much about my hips at 23. They're the focus of discussion whenever a friend tries to convince me their dress will "slide right on!" or when I think I can wear high waisted cigarette jeans (BA-BOW! HIPS!). They also continue to garner looks, gawks, and leers from men. I don't really care anymore. I'd take my hips over large breasts any day. My friends with back problems leave much to be desired to being more of an uhhh upside-down pear? Pizza slice?

One thing that continues to make me self-conscious of my hips, and rather... large derrière, is a swimsuit. I've poured over countless Vogue and Lucky guides for how to camouflage or highlight my PEAR shape. A skirted bottom? A extra-flashy top to balance? How about no.I 've grown used to walking right past matched two-pieces (seriously, who in the hell can wear those, I'd really love to know) and collected a comical grouping of skimpy bikini tops (size medium or small) and mom-cut bottoms (size large, or x-large if sizes run the least bit small).

mismatched bikinis galore! And Kate Upton, hah!

Recently I decided to start taking swimming slightly more seriously and with that came the dreaded real swimsuit purchase. I did my research, suits would run small and I had to watch out for cut. I seriously spent 10 minutes circling the racks for suits that looked like they'd come close to covering my hips and butt. Once I found a few that looked reasonable I had to make sure they didn't gape and fall off my shoulders, because this pear is not actually a size 10 everywhere.

I found a suit I could deal with, simple, black, covered my butt.

I went for the first open water swim today, the first in my new suit. The water was 45º, it was about 55º outside. I couldn't wait. I had to get in. A few people saw me enter and I'm sure thought I was a complete lunatic/was trying to kill myself because the water was seriously that cold but I didn't care. The only thing that makes me feeling whole, relieves all my stress and rights all the wrongs of my days is being in the water.

I am Emily-shaped, I don't really like pears.

Thanks to Marjon Carlos and her piece on xoJane for the inspiration!