So here we are, it’s January, and I planned a trip to the Pagosa Hot Springs with my friend and her daughter.

(And if anyone hasn’t had the opportunity to visit this hot springs, let me assure you, it is awesome, and it’s super fun to soak outside while the world is covered in snow.)

This being January, I had to dig out a swimsuit. Normally, I just wear this brown bikini I have that’s looking pretty faded these days. So I was like, well, maybe I can wear something different this time. So I pulled out a different one.

Ten years ago, I was working in parks maintenance at another hot springs, at the pool in Ouray, and one day, as I was walking into the bathhouse to clear a drain, a girl walking out to her car threw her swimsuit in the garbage. The suit didn’t actually land in the trash though, but on the concrete, which was where she left it. So I was like, Awesome! Free swimsuit!

I went over and picked up the suit, which was a bright yellow-blue-orange striped bikini, and discovered it was exactly my size. There was nothing wrong with it, either– no ripped seams or loose strings, no holes. It looked like the girl had worn it only once, and it was perfect.

I wore that bikini for years, until sometime after I turned thirty, when I guess I got body-conscious or something and decided I liked my plain Jane brown bikini a lot better, and made the brown one my go-to suit for the pool.

For this trip to Pagosa though, I felt inspired. I felt like I wanted pizazz. I thought: I’ll wear the striped one! Cause I love the bright colors!

I put on this bikini and prepared to bask in my bright, striped awesomeness in the mirror.

One good piece of news: the top still fit perfectly. Nothing changed there.

Unfortunately, the bottom was a different story. I no longer had the va-voom to fill out my suit, which meant I had diaper butt, which looks something like this:

Unlike the baby in the pic though, my suit wasn’t wet, so I couldn’t blame water weight for my saggy bottom. Also, the suit hadn’t been worn enough to have been stretched out or thinned– it wasn’t like years of pool abuse had damaged the fabric. This horrifying sight in the mirror (and seriously, what’s worse than being a grown woman and having diaper butt??) was a beast of my own making.

A year ago, I got inspired by a Tony Robbins video to keep my blood pH level alkaline, and since sugar turns the blood acidic, I stopped eating sugar.

Now, I can’t say I haven’t had any sugar in the past year. There was a time in June, when Greg and I took a road trip, when I ordered dessert in restaurants and ate things like sugared pecans on my salads. And this December, I received a gift certificate to Starbucks, and had a great time eating cookies and brownies at our local Starbucks cafe, happily scribbling new chapters for my latest book while I binged on pumpkin bread and peppermint mochas. I also had a lot of pie over the holidays, because how can I turn down homemade cherry pie? Sheesh.

But still. The lack of sugar took away a layer of my va-voom this past year, and my bright striped bikini was reduced to diaper butt. Suck.

Horrified now, but still wanting to wear something other than my plain Jane brown bikini, I reached into my drawer for the only other swimsuit I own: a bright pink-and-purple string bikini, lightly dusted in sparkle, that I only wore for one year, which was the year I met Greg, which was more than ten years ago.

I was like, I don’t even know why I kept this thing, it’s not going to fit.

But we tend to do that, don’t we? Keep things that don’t fit anymore. Cause we like the memories that go with them.

However, this swimsuit did fit– and it fit without giving me diaper butt.

Then my phone chirped, which was my friend texting me to cancel our trip to the Pagosa Hot Springs. Suck.

Later, I called my sister, and found out she was going to the hot springs in Durango the next night. Was she going on a date? No. Could I be her date? Absolutely!

So me and my non-diaper-butt bikini joined my sis at the pool, and it’s a long, cold walk to the water at Trimble Hot Springs, but the water was plenty warm and the soaking was still awesome.