A hollow victory for a brainwashed battler of the bulge

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

I thought I had gotten past the body thing. I thought I had my priorities straight. Better to work on the mind than the thighs. Better to read a book than work out. Age is a natural part of life, after all. What sense is there in fighting the inevitable?

What's a little cellulite? What are a few sags? What's a dimple or two among friends?

God, it was great being mature. After all the decades of being immature there was something close to holy about this epiphany. After all the years of looking in the mirror and wailing, of trying on bathing suits and weeping, of sulking and moaning and complaining and comparing, this was freedom.

And, oh, how free I was. Of guilt for not exercising. Of angst for not thinking about how I should be exercising. Of frustration for exercising and hating it, and lying and saying I liked it.

I had it all together. That's what I thought. And then I went on vacation.

I should never have walked past the pool. If I had headed straight for the beach I wouldn't have noticed her.

If I had gone to Alaska where Lycra and long underwear are staples, I would still have my priorities straight.

But no. One glance at this 40ish, maybe even 45ish, gorgeous-looking woman and I was 14 again, at Brant Rock in my grotesque, royal-blue, one-piece, designed-for-the-fuller-figure bathing suit, standing next to Ann Farrell in her pretty-in-pink, lacy two-piece, size 4 petite, feeling fat and ugly and miserable.

This older woman, who was not a girl, mind you, but a mother, maybe even a grandmother, looked totally fantastic.

She was put together. Her hair wasn't dented from where she had been lying down. It was short and frosted and perfect.

Her earrings and necklace and bracelet matched. Her fingernails and toenails were painted a light shade of coral and not one of them was chipped or shorter than another. Her teeth were even, her legs shaved, her tan a perfect bronze.

Add to this a navy blue-and-gold, two-piece bathing suit that fit her like a second skin (her first skin was perfect - no rolls around the middle, no little skirt to cover her thighs) and it was enough to make a person weep and swear off lemon doughnuts for life.

I plunked myself on a lounge chair diagonal to hers and propped a book in my hands in the hope that when she got up, her face would droop and her thighs would bruise her knees and I could go merrily on my way, certain once more that gravity always wins.

But when the woman stood, nothing fell, nothing jiggled, nothing shifted at all. When she sauntered over to the water fountain, her thighs didn't even rub together. That was the biggest hurt of all.

So maybe all she did all day was paint her nails and exercise and talk about her diet. Maybe she was a bore.

Who knows? I didn't talk to her. I wrapped myself in a towel and headed off to the beach to ponder the meaning of life.

And what I concluded is that life is really no different from a game of Candyland. There you are, going along your merry way, having made it through the Peppermint Forest and the Lollipop Woods, finally able to see what's really important, finally able to get a fix on the King's Candy Castle.

But then you fall down one of the chutes and you're back to where you were, having to relearn all you used to know.

I used to know that age is a natural part of life. I used to know what The New York Times reported Thursday, as if it were news, that image is one thing but "the reality is we have lumps and bumps in the damnedest places." I used to know that mature, clear-thinking adults didn't go around wishing they could look great, for even one day, please God, in a two-piece, navy-and-gold bathing suit.

Until I fell down the chute and became immature again.