How to Hunt for the Bucket List Bikini

Featured in Coast Magazine Summer 2010

Only a few weeks before summer begins and I am already behind on my preparations for this dangerous yet scintillating activity filled with blood, sweat and tears. Copious planning and attention to detail are necessary if I am to capture and kill the prey that will feed me all summer long. Yes, my fellow hunters, the swimsuit season is upon us.

Every year, the season kicks off with the arrival of the Land’s End bathing suit catalogue. I study my guide to swimwear shopping – the legend of body shapes: inverted triangle (hide the boobs), rectangle (get a waist), triangle (hide the big butt), circle (hide the tummy) and the star (when everything needs help). Last year, I was a circle, but things might have changed. My boobs seem to be on steroids these days.

Lately, I have been following the path of Oprah and her favorite book, Women, Food and God. Stop dieting and weighing, accept food as drug and eat as much as I want without obsessing. That last part is my own interpretation, but it’s working. My pants are looser; my head is clearer and See’s chocolate chips never tasted so delicious. To not count points and obsess over every little crumb has created a new item on my midlife crisis bucket list: wearing a bikini.

I wore my first itsy-bitsy polka dot bikini when I was six. After that, my bikini career ebbed and flowed with a star performance on the beaches of Thailand. After contracting dengue fever and dropping twenty pounds, I realized that a girl’s got to take advantage of her tropical disease. After I had my babies, I pulled out that black bikini for a trial run, but she was having none of it. She screamed “Red Rum,” leapt off my body and ran away – never to be seen again.

My Jimmy Buffet Margarita Maker helps me prepare for my session with the full-length mirror. After an icy cold Cabo Wabo, I take off my clothes and give a 360-degree spin. Suddenly, my full-length mirror cries, “While you are the fairest of them all, you must use the star.” The star? Help for all areas? Obviously, my new habit of self-love and walking around the house naked isn’t giving the results I desire. I scan the Land’s End catalogue for star suits. Everything is ugly. Butt ugly.

I cry to my girlfriends. One consoles me with color therapy. “Just wear a black bikini. Everyone thinks it’s lingerie and they don’t even notice your stomach.”

My other friend advises me to get a deep spray tan. “It hides the bumps and lumps.” Using chemicals to cover my stretch marks never sounded so fun.

And finally, my husband says, “I don’t want our girls wearing bikinis so why should you?” A whole other issue, for sure. I take it as a sign from the fashion gods to postpone my bikini bucket list dream for now.

Instead, I hunt down a black one-piece from Speedo that makes my boobs look smaller, hips thinner and waist slightly curved. As for the butt pop, my new white terry cloth cover-up takes care of that problem.

So fellow hunters, I’ve caught my prey; the hunt is over. Not quite as delicious as I had hoped, but there’s always next season and the chance to be more than a star.