Bikinis and Memories

While in Greece, I have clambered down a gorge, floated in Poseidon's waters, probably tempted the wrath of Zeus (this is me after all), wandered aimlessly, made a friend or two (I think), and nearly forgotten what the word trouble means.  Then again, I did say nearly . . . yet, along the way, the biggest thing that has awakened me is the shelling out of a disproportionate amount of my budget on new clothes.  As in, I went to a few big box stores and bought summer attire.  I shelled out some dough at local, Greek shops too.  I mean, I have certainly given more than my fair share to the Greek economy this summer.  I'm here for a few more weeks, and I'm certain local coffee shops (like the one near my flat), some restaurants, and maybe another bar or two will see my cash.  Tis the nature of life.  Yet . . . 

I won't say I'm a skinny mini.  Hell, I've never been that.  In high school, my junior year, there's a pic of my Dad and me at the JROTC installation ceremony.  I was in multi-inch heels, I was 5-foot-1, and I stood at 150 pounds.  People, my lupus was also raging like a damned sea beast at the time.  Seriously, like a fucking sea monster only Homer count have imagined!  With that, I tell you that in graduate school, I hit 150.  Yeah.  I also bottomed out not long after, ended up in the hospital.  Good times.  The lupus was a bitch in toxic heels too. Just sayin'.  On that note, let's look at it now.  

I'm off a few nasty big pharma drugs--long-term steroids is one--and the weight tends to magically drop with that.  I've still got my big pharma sidecar too.  The RA is awake a bit too.  Oh well.  My body still gets pissy if I eat much, so I'm over here on two cups of coffee (sometimes three) a day, fruit mid-day, and dinner.  Not gonna lie that I've taken to some Greek chocolate or ice cream in the evenings.  Can't do that ice cream too much since the whole dairy doesn't like my thing is still alive and well.  I'm walking 10k steps a day, or more, like I usually do.  I'm a city girl at heart, and even on islands floating in the Aegean, I eschew the rental car and hoof it.  Of course, there's also the factor that driving in these parts is like playing frogger with your life.  Yeah.  I'll pass.  Just my daily existence is like a game of frogger.  I don't need added feats to overcome (or frighten the bejesus of me and those I know).  

So, back to those chain stores.  While in H&M, I bought one black skinny dress and a bikini.  There were a few other things in there, but those two are the marks of triumph.  I mean, my gym shorts . . . y'all don't give a rats rear end that I picked up a pair of those.  But that bikini is a real one.  It's not a tankini, one with a super high cut set of bottoms, or one with a skirt (I had one of those at the end of the '90s, I believe).  That being said, I haven't worn a real bikini since I was small.  To-this-day, I remember the day I stopped.  I was about six when you could still flutter about in a bathing suit midday--in the grocery, the photoshop, the car repair place, the liquor store--and no one paid a mind.  It was the early 1980s by this point. I still remember the words that made me curl my arms around my stomach and feel my insides curdle.  None of us really need to go into that one.  I'll let you use your imagination.  Yet, those words--by grown-ass men--stuck with me.  Then, in middle school, I had a friend who also told me how I needed a diet and to lose weight.  Yeah, she was kind of a bitch.  I wasn't overweight; at the private school I was at, kids were rude as fuck, by they at least didn't have me in the fat category.  I wore clothes from the so-called normal-sized racks back then, as I do now, and she thought my size eight to nine frame was huge.*  She also modeled for a while, and last I heard from her, she was still obsessed with looks and image.  Bite me in the best Gen Xer voice I can muster.  

So, I bought a damned bikini at H&M.  At this point, I'm not sure if I finally--a few weeks later--had the courage to wear it because I'm tired of wearing my black one from Indiana (that's a full-coverage bikini), since my Abba one (I made right before leaving NYC) is too large, or if it's one of my "she's coming undone" moments.  Anyone who knows me knows when stress and fear explode, I get a little scrappy and--well--wild(ish).  

Yeah, my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer days before the first anniversary of my sister's death from cancer.  Technically, Vinnita had a heart attack, but it derived from a myriad of things.  The chemo, her smoking, her drinking, her mental state . . . as for my Mom, this is her third damn bought.  When I was five, she lost her uterus to cancer, and I remember many things from that.  I remember her Mom coming, and Grandma Jackie gave me a pink lollypop at one point.  I overheard the adults talking, and a family friend I called Aunt Sharon was the one who told me.  We sat on the couch, hers as I remember, as Aunt Sharon being Aunt Sharon, didn't hold back.  Just as she wore her hair big and donned heels, she poured a drink and leaned in and back.  It was not a cocktail.  It was a drink.  Scotch.  On the rocks.  She took a sip and handed it to me, and told me to take one like she did.  I wasn't stupid, nor had I not been around alcohol at this point.  I took a small one.  Drinking adult drinks meant something was up.  Perhaps I, to-this-day, look back on that period, seeing Mom in the hospital, and after when she came home as just another moment because Aunt Sharon told me that Mom was lucky and the cancer was found early and it was an easier kind to handle.  Maybe.  Or maybe it was the scotch. I hear she's gone now.  I sure could use a scotch with her now.  Years later, Mom had a relatively minor bought with skin cancer.  After a while, you become numb.  

Back to those lollies.  Grandma gave me one to give Mom.  To-this-day, when Mom is in the hospital, she gets one.  Not sure my parents knew that derives from her Mom giving me that pink lolly.  It was the big ball-shaped ones.  I'm 45 now, and I still won't touch a pink lolly.  As a kid, people thought it was strange.  I had my reasons.  Clearly, we find out more on the 18th, and I'll see her around Labor Day.  The universe has refined the gut-punch these days.  

So, yeah.  Maybe I'm just "coming undone," maybe 45 really does look fucking good on me, maybe Greece is good for me, or maybe none of it matters.  After a year of tone-deaf fucking MDs with statements of you need to "aggressively lose weight" (what the fuck does that actually mean), insisting that I need a gastric bypass, and reminding me in no uncertain terms that I'm obese if I feel comfortable in a real bikini so be it.  I've got half my MDs saying, "What? That's crazy!" One got a little hot; that was fun to watch.  I enjoyed that one!  Though I'll have you know, I'm still considered obese.  Yup.  Even more so, if I feel so comfortable that I climb my frame from the sand and towel to walk up to the beach bar in said bikini and no cover-up for a drink, then so be it.  I stayed for a couple of hours, and the joy of it was watching grown men fall over themselves to get me a seat and the bartender beg to take my order.  A couple screwdrivers and a plate of fries later, under the Grecian sun, life was even better than it had been at dawn's light out on Naxos deep in the Cyclades.  I hadn't been to a bar since before the pandemic.  Damn.  

Years ago, not long after I met him, a friend told me Naxos is one of his favorite places.  Then again, he's Greek and is probably eating his own soul at not being here this summer.  But, yeah, I totally get the love affair.  I highly recommend Absolute and fresh orange juice (seriously, you'd be hard-pressed to find a joint serve you bottled).  That and the sand . . . as it is me, a drunken lunatic decided to tell me about climate change and the Gods.  My Greek isn't that great, but people, I caught enough.  I will have you know; there are a few decent men left.  The married Irish CEO next to me chatted sporadically to quell the crazy Greek two stools over.  He was here with his wife and 22-year old daughter.  I told him to tell his daughter that he was the MVP by saving me and that her next boyfriend should have that quality.  Legit.  

On that note, I have to pack before my ferry back to Athens, where my terrace calls for falling asleep on the seating while I write.  

*I apologize for that term.  The lack of a better one is the best I can say right now.  Normal is relative, as we all know.  Normal for me is on the edge of mainstream sizes and being just under plus size.   That's life in modern America.  Pfft.