Ah swimsuit season

And my favorite swimsuit seems to have done a bunk over the winter.

I cannot find it anywhere.

It was last seen at my folks’ house in FL over Thanksgiving vacation & I am 100% sure that, had I left there when we departed, I would have gotten a phone call about it, followed by a UPS package containing it.

This did not happen so I can only assume it is hiding out somewhere in my house unbeknownst to me.

It was a 3 piece set from Lands End, probably in 2006. A tankini top, a regular bottom and a skirt bottom, back when skirt bottoms were a new thing.  I still have the skirt part but the other two parts are missing & it’s the tankini I miss the most.

You see; it fit. It had the proper straps. And it contained the bewbs.

The bewbs are my problem area with bathing suits.

The tummy area is problem too but honestly I’m too busy dealing with the bewbs to give a rap about the tummy area.

See, when I go shopping for bras I have to look for the fourth letter of the alphabet-twice.

And I am a size 10. Sorta. (which is why I wear two piece suits not one piece)

You cannot find a size 10 tankini top that accommodates the fourth letter of the alphabet-twice easily.

Unless you like overflowing out all over the place.

Back before gravity struck I didn’t mind it that much, but since gravity found me in my early 30’s I’m not so into it.

Bathing suits are generally made to fit the first through third letters of the alphabet. So I have to get a size 14 to hold the bewbs, but it doesn’t fit across the back or anywhere else.

Then there are the straps. They must go over the shoulders like a bra, not fasten behind the neck. This is because of the combination of gravity & the fourth letter of the alphabet-twice. Straps behind the neck are painful & make me feel like my head is being pulled downward.

This combination eliminates every easily purchased suit in Target, JCPenny, TJ Maxx & Khols.

Lands End does accommodate the fourth letter of the alphabet issue, giving you choices of ‘regular’, fourth letter & fourth letter-twice (both cost $5 more). But their idea of sizing and a bra’s idea of it are not always quite the same in my experience so I end up guessing. Even after reading the size charts. (lands end size charts & me have had problems since the mid 90s when I never fit into the size jeans the charts said I should & apparently I was a 11,7,9  all at once in dress sizes. How do you begin to choose with that?)

This leads to exchanging, which means I have to put things in the mail & I suck at putting things in the mail.

I think it’s the padding in the bras, because once you get out of ‘regular’ cup or suit size and into the fourth letter of the alphabet or plus sizing, they put in underwires & padding because they think you need the structure.

And probably you/I do, but they don’t seem to take the depth of the padding into consideration or they over compensate for it. So you are either squished by the padding or flopping around all loose in an oversized padded cup. Sometimes it’s a removable pad. Sometimes that is a good thing.

I found a suit I liked online & called around to stores in ‘my area’ (up to 2 hours away) and naturally NONE of them had it in stock. Online reviews seemed mixed on how it fit, with people claiming large, small & true to size, but all of them loving the support & most of them being in their late 30’s & up. So I ordered it at just the fourth letter of the alphabet because historically that seems to work best.

I’m guessing about a week after it arrives my old suit will suddenly reappear in the drawer where it belongs.

***disclaimer…I know I mentioned Lands End a lot, but this post is nothing to do with them really, they just happened to be where I bought the missing suit, so that’s where I went to look for a new one. Mostly this post is about my bewbs being a challenge. There is certainly is no compensation for this post, though jeebus! after spending $60 on a top that may or may not fit I absolutely would welcome some.***