My 'kini' woes!

In 2015, at the age of 35 years, I decided I wanted to wear a bikini and I bravely made a resolution to that effect. No, it was not some strange expression of my mid-life crisis. (35 years is mid-life I suppose?!) I wanted to do this many times in the past but I either had no opportunity or I lacked the confidence to carry it off or my figure was not flattering enough and of course I had no intention of looking like a blob of wobbly gloppy-glue in a bikini, so I didn’t dare. Until now.

At this time, I had the opportunity with open beaches in South east Asia where a bikini does not draw any attention and importantly, with the efforts I had put in with GCC steps, yoga, dance and Pilates, I felt I had arrived at figure that I was more comfortable showing off. A couple of my Indian girlfriends were amazed at my courageous plan. Perhaps they secretly thought I'd lost the plot! On the contrary, my western girlfriends were amazed to hear that I didn’t have one yet! How did I get to this age without one? Duh! But thankfully neither my friends nor my husband tried to discourage me or change my mind. In fact, they gave me the reassurance that I was seeking from them. Relieved to hear that my plan did not sound completely ridiculous to anyone, I was ready to execute it.

For the first few months of the year I talked about my idea, mostly to my husband. (He may want to describe that as chewing his brains!) April arrived and I had done nothing about it but talk so he finally asked me to go out shopping so I could bring my plan to action. In April, we also made our bookings for a trip to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia and the travel dates were set for August, to coincide with the SG50 national day celebration holiday. We had booked ourselves at the Shangri-La Rasa Ria which looked awesome and we starting looking forward to our trip.

With this new date in mind, I moved my shopping plans for later. I visited a couple of malls closer to home but could not find anything that made me happy. In July, with my deadline fast approaching I chickened out slightly by deciding to buy a mono-kini instead and restarted my hunt. The pressure intensified when I was a week away from my trip and still had no “kini” of any kind, in my closet! Finally, I saw one at an Aimer outlet in Jurong Point mall. It fit me like a glove and made me look awesome too so I bought it! I cost me a whooping SGD 175 which I know was too much but it made me happy and that is all that matters, right! (yeah, I say that console myself) I proudly wore this mono-kini at Kota Kinabalu and was super impressed with my guts. (the mental kind, just to be clear). After this mini victory, we got back to Singapore and got busy with our routine. However, I still had a good four months of 2015 left and my resolution felt incomplete but I didn’t give it any further thought. My friends and I had planned a get-together at Goa in December that year. When I met them, I shared my story of my failed attempt at buying a bikini and we laughed it off. That same afternoon on our way back from an exciting day full of shopping, we chanced upon a local bikini store and my friends egged me on in for a ‘look around’. We picked a few pieces for me to try and they gave me the thumbs up after a peek in the trial room. Of course as always, my size was not available in the patterns I liked and finally those that fit well and had good designs were not on discount. They never are!

Finally, I found one that I loved, it fit amazingly well, had a lovely mix of light and dark shades and was affordable despite not being on a discount. I bought it! I did a victory dance and smiled ear to ear all the way back to our hotel. We took a dip in the freezing pool within the next couple of hours as the sun began to set and we celebrated that night with seafood, cocktails and a live band. 

In this way, before the end of the year, I completed my resolution and felt totally liberated and awesome! (so what if it took me 12 full months to do it! ;- ))