get me outta this swimsuit or so help me, so help me!

today's rambling is brought to you in part by: awareness.

my last four days have been spent in the west indies with the family i nanny for. gosh, i love them. a good portion of my sun-shine filled hours have been spent at an infinity pool overlooking one of the most stunning parts of the ocean i've ever seen. it's a rough life i live.

i sat at the edge of the pool, wearing a tank top and my work out pants and thought about when i was a kid and how when we stayed in hotels, the pool was all that mattered to me. arrive, get in my swimsuit, stay in it for as long as possible. when i was a little girl i longed for times i could wear that swimsuit. as an adult, i dread times where it's expected of me to wear one.

i guess that shift happens sometime in your early adolescence - the awareness of your body - including every dimple, line, freckle, and weird patch of hair. magazines aren't exactly pushing covers about the girls setting up lemonade stands to raise money for the battered women's shelter.

i walk by the newstands in all the train stations and see a full range of front covers plastered with every girl from the big boobed to the size two'd to the big assed to the fitness guru'd. what happens if you don't look like any of the variations that you see up there? i guess we're the girls who fall into the "other" category. waiting in an awkward shaped line for any guy or girl to come along and connect with us on a different level that doesn't include physical attraction at first.

it's silly the things we tell ourselves. i'm in another country, with absolutely no one i know or will likely ever see again, and yet i still can't take of my clothes and jump into the pool with just my swimsuit on. if any one of these spoiled rich jokers asked me to write or paint or play music i would whip anything out. my body? oooh no. but here's the deal: God made that too. it's up to me to sculpt it into whatever i want it to be, but God started me off with a pretty damn nice base. and he started you off the same way.

how can i be so proud of what's on the inside of me and so selective about my outside? i need things to start matching up. do you?