To the Woman at the Waterpark, I Don’t See You!

Originally written July 16, 2024

We just got back from a water park vacation. It was a relatively large facility, with an indoor water park and an outdoor water park. This vacation can only be described as the best family vacation ever! As a mom, I have never said those words before. In fact, family vacation and fun have never even shown up in the same sentence in my vernacular. This time was different. I’m sure there were several factors contributing to the success of this trip:

• We have one child, and he is now old enough to do a lot of things independently.

• We were only gone for three days and only 1.5 hour drive from home.

• Neither my husband, nor I work full-time during the summer.

• And I’m sure a slew of other reasons!

  
  

So, as I had this time to just . . . enjoy my time, I observed (as I tend to do). Mostly, I observed the ladies, because let’s be honest, we’re way more interesting!

Growing up, I was really insecure, especially about my body. I had some pretty messed up ideas about body image which I think most of us did — or do. I don’t think I felt comfortable in my own skin until very recently, and sometimes I still don’t. I think when I hit 40, I stopped caring though. I didn’t stop caring about myself; my health, my appearance, etc. I just stopped caring what other people thought — strangers. I don’t know where that comes from, but I wish I could bottle it and sell it to all the ladies with insecurities about their bodies because I would make a fortune — in the first 30 seconds!

This is not news. This is not riveting information that you haven’t heard a thousand times before but something about what I observed on this trip made me need to write this to all of you — to all of us!

Looking around this water park, watching literal seas of people, one thing stood out to me. There are literally thousands of styles of women’s bathing suits, maybe hundreds of thousands. There are 2 styles of men’s bathing suits — trunks and briefs (what some of us may have referred to as Speedos). This got me wondering why. Why are there so many types of women’s suits and not men’s?

The answer — we hate our bodies! They make a swimsuit for every body insecurity that we could possibly have, and they market to our insecurities. Don’t like your thighs? Here’s a suit for you! Hate your boobs? Here’s one for you! Want to cover up your everything? There’s one for that too! We are trained to hate our bodies from straight out of the womb. But men are not. Regardless of what their bodies look like, they wear the trunks. He wears trunks, and they are not dissimilar to his trunks and the other guys trunks. Oh, and here are some siblings wearing the exact same trunks.

What is my point? Because we all know all of this already. I’ll get there. I promise.

We were at this water park for three days. During those three days, we saw lots of skin. We saw bellies, boobs, and butt cracks. We saw teeny, weeny bikinis. We saw folks covered head to toe. We saw people with tattoos. We saw people of all shapes, sizes, races, abilities, genders, religions, etc. Everyone was there, and the coolest thing was — everyone was having fun!

That’s my point. It was amazing to see everyone having a great time. I feel like I spent so much of my younger days worrying about what other people were thinking of me that I failed to have as much fun as I could have. I was too busy pulling my suit out of my butt and trying to cover up my belly that I failed. I never had that much fun because my brain was consumed with the thought of what others must be thinking of me. I wish I could go back and tell her that we all have our insecurities, but we’re all just there to have a good time. Relax, young Noelle. Relax and let go.

I watched people. Not in a way that I was judging them in any capacity. I watched them to see how they were watching others. As a therapist, I’m pretty good at reading body language. What impressed me was that I didn’t see anyone else judging anyone either. NO ONE! It was amazing. Each and every person I saw was just living their life. They were there to have fun, and they were so caught up in what they were doing or what their little kid was running towards or if their older kid needed more sunscreen, that they didn’t care to judge anybody else.

Sure, I’m sure some people were judging others in their minds, or with their people behind backs somewhere but if they were, it wasn’t outright, and it wasn’t noticeable. And if they were, they were the jerk because everyone else was having the time of their life.

So, to all the women who stressed this year about what suit to buy to cover whatever thing you didn’t want others to notice . . . to all the women who packed five suits for a three-day trip . . . to all the women who hesitated taking off their cover-up . . . to all the women who never feel their body is good enough — — I didn’t see you! I didn’t see your thighs. I didn’t notice your boobs. I didn’t see anything you didn’t want me too because I was too busy having the time of my life.

You are already good enough!! Have fun!!!!