Midlife Women, I’m Going to Need You to Wear a Two-Piece
We are going to stand defiantly together, do you hear me?
One of the greatest joys of having abandoned my 9-to-5 job so that I can do my own thing and work from home is that I can take a break at 2 pm and head out to the pool with a book for an hour.
Let me tell you what sucks the joy right out of that if you let it. The 23-year-olds doing the same thing except they have asses and abs. And those asses and abs are perfect.
I don’t know if these ladies get 25% percent of their bottoms because the companies making these bottoms are definitely saving 25% of the cloth costs.
I don’t say this in judgment. I am fascinated. It is awe-inspiring. I am hoping to God that these ladies have some shred of awareness of how fantastic they look.
Something tells me that GenZ is wildly on board with self-love and body positivity. But, that was not the case with GenXers. For the love of God, we came into adulthood when fen-phen was still a thing.
I have held, for quite some time now, that if I had any idea how amazing yet fleeting my 23-year-old ass was, I would have made a plaster of Paris cast of it and it would sit on my fireplace mantle and everyone who came to my house would be asked to pay homage to it.
I mean, I have an ass and abs. They are just not anything anyone at my swanky Phoenix mid-rise apartment building wants to see. This is the truth I tell myself.
These ladies have not met the great elevator of age. The one that has no “up” button. Things only move “down.” The only thing that seems to go up these days is the number on the scale.
Ladies, we are at a crossroads.
I propose that the midlife women of the world unitedly lounge but the pool with our low-calorie adult beverages and wear whatever swim attire damn well pleases us. And, ladies, we’re going to do this with confidence.
How are we going to do this? I’ll tell you. I’ve devised a three-step plan for how this will work. We’re taking over.
Step One — Alignment work
Okay. This one sounds a lot like actual work. We’re going to stop for a damn minute and take a long look around at swimsuits and figure out what we like. Not what we’ve been told we should like. What we like. Your mother-in-law or sister-in-law does not get to determine your style. Screw that.
We’ve been told for far too long that the minute we hit 45, we should be relegated to tankinis from the L.L. Bean catalog. That idea can go fuck right off. You go out to Target, and you look at every suit until you find one YOU like.
Personally, I own 27 swimsuits. Your read that right. Because I also know that what swimsuit we feel most comfortable in directly correlates to the amount of time since we last ate a burrito. It’s a scale.
We have the right, as a grown-ass women, to wear whatever feels good to us, makes us comfortable, or brings us joy. Other people’s level of comfort with what we are wearing at the pool, beach, or the damn grocery store, is not our concern.
Two rules with this though, do NOT look at models on websites wearing the suit of your liking. Also, do NOT try on a swimsuit at Target. Ever. That lighting is a hellscape. Buy 15 suits and bring back 13 if you have to.
Step Two — We’re gonna fake it until we make it
I have claimed this as our summer. The cute 23-year-olds are not the only ones who get to move about the world as though they own it. We have a large share of ownership of the world and the receipts to prove it.
We have bought our share with blood, sweat, and tears that have fallen from the eyes of the patriarchy. We’re going to start acting like it. Here’s how we do it:
We are going to head out to beaches and pools with the confidence of mediocre white men. You know the ones. They are easy to spot. They are most likely wearing cargo shorts, or as I like to call them, purse pants.
Put the swimsuit on. Look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself whatever pep talk you think Tim in IT would give himself every morning before he heads to the office where he routinely uses the last of the coffee creamer without ever replacing it.
Step Three — We are going to radically love each other
We are in this together, ladies. Together. Each and every time you see a woman in midlife rocking a swimsuit or any outfit (or even maybe awkwardly trying) you are going to compliment the everloving shit out of her.
Every encounter is going to be a communication akin to a secret handshake. This will freak people out and scare the hell out of some people. We are a force to be reckoned with. Let’s act like it.
Really, what we’re doing is taking back control. We are not only changing our narrative but the narrative for other women because I know the lie we tell ourselves. We are convinced that if we wear (fill in the blank) people will look at us and judge us negatively.
We do not judge other people for their swimwear so why would we think other are doing the same to us. No one cares what we look like in a swimsuit. If they do, they suck.
The real work here is level-setting expectations of ourselves. No woman in midlife is expected to look like a 23-year-old. We, and we alone, get to determine the expectations people (including ourselves) should have for our bodies.
Vanessa Torre is a writer and a midlife coach for women looking to make remarkable changes so they can live creative, fulfilling, and meaningful lives.
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Love this! I am almost 50 and I absolutely refuse to wear a swimsuit with a skirt. I simply will not. I worked hard for the body I have and while it is never going to pass for 23 again, it is mine and I am proud.