You'd think that by now, at the dawn of the 21st century, swimsuits would be created with special nanotechnology so they looked as awesome on you as they do on the hangers. Perhaps if we took some of that time and money we're spending on the alleged global warming and put it towards swimsuit technology, I wouldn't continue to embarrass myself by constantly trying on swimsuits that, despite their labels claiming sizes for WOMEN, make me look like I'm wearing my preschool-age daughter's clothes.

Of course, this is not a new complaint. I get wound up about it almost every summer (except the summer I was pregnant with aforementioned daughter, when I got to wear a big blue tent masquerading as a swimsuit and was very, very excited that the bottoms were only a maternity-sized medium). To be honest, most of the women I know have been making this complaint for many, many years before the appearance of the baby pooches and bye-bye-arms.

I, for one, was making it way back when, before I had either a pooch or flabby arms, before I really knew the true meaning of "fat" (that would come later, when I was pregnant with my son).

Back then, I wore bikinis all the time, especially the four years we lived in Austin, Texas. I can't say I ever enjoyed wearing a bikini. I was proud that I could wear one, and I felt it was expected of me: I was in my early twenties, I worked out, everyone else did. Still, I rarely wore one outside of the pool in our apartment complex. If we went to the lake, I always managed to wear my bikini top and a pair of shorts. Walking from our apartment to the complex pool wrapped in a towel and then lying down on a chaise lounge and trying to ignore the people I lived among was a very different thing, for me, then prancing around practically naked in a social situation. I just wasn't comfortable.

Still, that didn't stop me from touring the greater Austin area in order to find a bikini to wear to a Mardi Gras themed Fourth of July party.

I don't remember the particulars, or exactly why bikinis were the expected attire--my memory lapse has more to do with the amount I drank that night, more than the fact that it was over ten years ago--but whatever the reason, my best friend at the time and I began searching for the perfect bikini. Or at least, I did. As a long, tall, willowy blond goddess, the kind of girl I aspired to be (at only 23, I was still holding out for a late growth spurt--I was okay with my darker hair color), she had no problem wearing a bikini to a party, and she had several on hand in her wardrobe. The difficulty for her was probably just choosing the right one. She was also Hell-bent on making our own Mardi Gras headdresses, just because she loved doing that stuff, and while I was traipsing around town looking for the perfect bikini, she was searching the craft stores for the perfect feathers and beads.

I should have just told GoddessGirl I wasn't comfortable wearing a bikini in that situation. But I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to have the same confidence and poise that she did. I wanted, like I said, to be taller, prettier, skinnier....

Of course, no matter how I spun it, I wasn't comfortable wearing my bikini in a social situation. I was very, very afraid that my big, ugly belly (I had no idea what a big belly was then) would pop out. To make certain this wouldn't happen, I chose bottoms that were a size too big. Instead of settling on my hips, I pulled them up and over my hips. Not the Queen of Fashion even then, I didn't realize that by covering up my navel I was doing more harm than good. I turned what should have been sexy bikini briefs into granny undies. It didn't help that the bikini was white, with a lacy overlay that I thought was a step up from plain (something else I learned from this was that I should never shop alone).

I knew something wasn't right when GoddessGirl's father answered the door and gave me the old double-take. Then he acted funny, and not funny as in "Oh, wow, my daughter's friend is hot." Which would have been weird enough, but better then the "Holy crap, what is she wearing?" vibe I was getting. GoddessGirl, wrapped up as she was in the enormous headdress she had made (a toddler could have done a better job with mine), either didn't notice, didn't care or didn't want to tell me. She did tell me later that her dad definitely thought I was wearing my underwear, but because she was a good friend she spun it so he came off like a silly old man. There was a reason she was my best friend.

Still, I brushed off my doubts, ignored my discomfort, and got really, really drunk. Drinking always helps to cover up emotion. Not do away with it--it's always there lurking in the background, but when you're drunk you don't care how your sober self feels.

I don't remember much else about the party, other than the drinking and the nagging, overall sense of feeling uncomfortable. I do remember lying on the grass at some point with GoddessGirl and the guy she would marry a few years down the road. I'm not sure why were lying on the grass, or how we ended up there, but I do remember laughing so hard my navel-covered stomach hurt. Too bad I can't remember the killer jokes we were were obviously telling. Oh, and GoddessGirl's guy contracted meningitis somewhere along the way that night, probably from the ball pit--can't get much more unsanitary than a bunch of drunk people rolling around in a tent full of plastic balls.

But overall, my memories of that night are fun, goofy memories. I knew I didn't look fabulous, but I didn't think I looked ridiculous, either, and I was ignoring my discomfort. And really, what woman, even GoddessGirl, hasn't settled at some time or another?

Then I saw the photos.

The situation probably wasn't helped by the fact that in all the photos I'm standing next to the amazing GoddessGirl, she who could (and probably still can) look amazing in rags and garbage bags (and in fact had made an amazing headdress out of feathers and beads and cardboard). The situation probably wasn't helped by the several drinks that I'd had within the first few moments of the party, my inhibitions relaxing so I forgot to stand up straight and keep my eyes wide open. Even Angelina Jolie would look bad with droopy eyes. And the situation was definitely not helped by me yanking my bikini bottoms up far past my hips and just over my belly button, turning them into granny undies instead of...well, bikini bottoms.

But most of all, I think, it was just the plain and simple fact that, out in the bright, Austin sunlight--or moonlight, as the case may be, among the vibrant green expanse of lawn and under the bold pinks and purples of the Mardi Gras decorations, my white bikini looked like underwear.

Expensive underwear, perhaps, but underwear with granny panties and and underwire bra nevertheless.

Underwear.

I still cringe at the photos. Yes, I've kept them. You could say it's part reminder, part a future lesson for my kids: Don't ever do something you're not comfortable doing just because someone told you to.

Yet here I stand, staring at myself in a teensy-weensy bikini underneath the unnaturally harsh flourescents of the fitting room, imagining myself out on the beach in the bikini, running and playing and building sand castles with my kids and worrying the entire time that my boobs were going to pop out. And why? Just to prove I could.

"You," I said to myself, "are almost thirty-nine years old. Don't you think it's time you stop doing things just to prove that you can?"

But myself didn't answer. I was already busy taking off the teensy-weensy bikini and putting on my street clothes. I was thinking about the perfectly fine tankini I had at home, one that did what I wanted it to do: let me live the way I wanted to live.