One piece, Two piece, No Bikini

 Everything I chose to leave behind is cluttered on the floor now, clothes and items fill the big empty closets, the halls echo from and emptiness. I kick an empty wine bottle and look at a picture of my fiancé and I. Flowers that were once alive and bright turned into crispy dull brown, little traces of life where scattered thought the house, a card sat on our night stand. I look at my 3 karat diamond glittering in the morning sun it sparkling brilliantly, it sits high on my left finger, I gently remove it and place it in my pocket. I pick up an old journal that sat on the floor and open to a page that states    “I’m bored, restless, a relentless urge takes over my body, and my heart beat races and adrenalin pumps through my veins like morphine. Numbing. I can not decide, struggle between what society and culture says I should be doing and my own destiny. I am fighting a holly war with myself. Why am I staying in this, why does it never seize fire. I am plagued with what lies beyond the horizon. Visions of the Mediterranean and villas are in my dreams”  I laugh out loud with happiness, but still a deep hurt remains. I am about to board a plane in a few days, I will be along the Mediterranean Sea in Sicily. He takes my hand and my baggage and leads me to the door. I take one last look at what my life would have been. I look at the empty cream colored walls, I breathe deeply and remember designing ever corner, hanging every picture that was taken down in my home, in our home only the nails remain. All that is left is memories and a hole in the wall, he screamed, and I shrank, I stopped eating and become smaller each day. The only thing that I could control.  I glance back for the last time and quietly close the door behind me. “Are you okay?”, he asks “I am better now” I smile back and continue on with out wanting to return. A woman must know when it is time to leave and when she must go.  

I wake up hoping that it was a bad dream, that nothing that I had dreamt had been true. I sink closer to my reality, my dreams. I woke up with visions of the Mediterranean fresh on my skin like dew from the rain. It is real now, I am no longer dreaming. I have been living in Sicily for one month, what I dreamt came true. Perhaps I never wanted to finish my adventure, never wanted to be something I was never met to be.  

I sit on the beach soaking in amber sun, looking around I had imagined being here before, maybe in another life, another time or in dreams filled with colors. I am  sipping wine and I bite into an apricot grow from the Sicilian sun, filled with fresh strawberry jam, the apricot is bitter and fresh and the jam is sweet and home made. I get goose bumps even though it is not cold. I feel alive, my skin tingles with the simple pleasures of life. It is the first time in a long cold winter that I feel inspired, pure and in love with just me fills my heart and soul and keeping me alive.

 Time and space escapes. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I can be cured; I can heal because I am made to live. With any luck I can learn a lesson from the beautiful curvy women that pass before me on the powdery sand; they are comfortable in their own skin, or so it seems. What a gift; what pleasure to love yourself for what you are.  Despite their flaws, size or age, all of the women wear toddler size bathing suits and run around on the beach chasing after small children or a lover. I watch in awe, my heart has grown with nothing but love for me and pride for them. Proud to be a woman, and content to live.   

The women in my “adopted family” sit on beach chairs forming a semi-circle, whispering and talking about the people passing by. Turning to face me, I get the feeling I am the topic of discussion. Ida translates for me and apparently there has been an agrement that I need to wear a smaller bikini, teasing me they say my bathing suit is like a grandma for my small frame. No, no I answer. I could never, I don’t have the body for that! Lesson number one in Sicily, there is no arguing with a Sicilian woman.  In a loving way one woman says “you have a fit, young body and wear a “big” bikini, wear a thong Krysta” they laugh and agree. You need to eat something girl, I could break you in two; like a chicken bone, snap! she purses her lips, here have some of this, passing me an ice cream cone. No, thanks I reply. We need to fatten you up a little says the grandmother. She stands up from here chair and comes over to me picking me up in one clean swoop rocking me like one of the children on the beach. I think she could bench press me if she tried. Her plump curves are flying in every direction as she laughs a beautiful toothless smile, I can not help but start laughing freely.

 The next night the Ida comes home from a day of shopping, she is carrying about twenty different bags. “Hello, everyone” she sings. We are sitting at the table talking and eating dinner, the evening news plays in the background, as I try to pick out the few familiar words. “I have presents” she calls. She hands me a small but chic bag. It is black with silver writing and tied with a small bow. I look at her slightly confused as she smiles back at me. “Open it” she reads my expression. I pull the bow and the bag opens, reaching into the bag I pull out an exquisite bathing suit in the style of a thong. It is an extra small and looks like it could fit a six year old. I tilt my head back a laugh with genuine delight. “Thank you” I whisper “Now you are one of the girls” she says.  She tells me to never hold back, just live, and it was my time to shine. “oh and Krysta, she adds , tomorrow is yours go to the beach and meet a nice boy in that bathing suit, enjoy” she winks. It is just me in a designer thong.

I am here to learn, to quest, to treasure, and to be me in a thong bikini.