Buy the Damn Bikini
If you had told the old Courtney that she would buy a bikini, put it on, stand in front of a mirror, snap a photo, then share said photo on the internet… she wouldn’t even have laughed. She would have given it ZERO credence whatsoever. Because that would simply never happen.
And yet here I am…sharing two. The first was taken two years ago. The second was taken this week.
At first glance, it looks like a before-and-after. I know how the internet loves those. It loves numbers, measurements, and transformations that are promised to be yours if you buy this, try that, and live by “the work-works” mentality, without sharing the actual truth about the “work”.
But that is not what this is; I am not selling anything, I am not even asking you to try anything, I am actually just going to share some really vulnerable truths instead. Ones that the other side, the dark side, of the internet loves to sink their teeth into.
But first, let me be really clear: this is not about weight loss or proving that I was disciplined enough, strong enough, or somehow more worthy because my body looks different today.
It is about something much harder to measure with scales and numbers.
It has been twenty years since I purchased a bikini. Even owning one back then, I was constantly wearing shorts or a cover-up over it. In these last twenty years— since throwing that thing in the trash— I have hidden behind oversized shirts, carefully chosen angles, and one-piece swimsuits with skirts because I never believed my body was good enough to be “shown off”. Even when I wore the swimsuit, I never really wore it. I was constantly negotiating with insecurity, tugging here, pulling there, laying a towel across my lap, running to the water before anyone could see me… trying to become invisible while standing in plain sight.
Also, over those twenty years, I married someone who further made me lose sight of my worth. I became a mother and watched my body change in miraculous, yet cruel (for someone with body image issues) ways. I was diagnosed with disorders that validated that my body was constantly working against me. Type 2 diabetes was one of those.
I remember vividly, two years ago, my PCP walked into the room, sat down, and said: “Your A1C went up, not down”….I was CRUSHED and spiraling. For months and months, I had tried diet, exercise, and sobriety, confident that I had made a difference. “You have Type 2 diabetes”. The sense of devastation was quickly replaced with deep anger. “No, you’re wrong, I do not”. In that moment, I found myself fighting back, finally telling my body what she was going to do— play by my damn rules.
This is the part I won’t hide, even though some people will invalidate my journey by saying I cheated, I didn’t put in the work… They can say whatever they want. I know what this journey has cost me. I chose to use a GLP-1 as part of my treatment plan. Alongside massive dietary changes and regular exercise. I will never pretend otherwise because there is nothing shameful about using a tool that helped me reclaim my health. My A1C is normal now. My body is healthier. My energy is returning (slowly, thanks to perimenopause). I am grateful for modern medicine and for every decision I made to fight for the life I wanted.
But medicine, exercise, and gluten-free food did not do the deeper work for me. The life I wanted still required, no, requires, intentional work. Every. single. day.
Leg day could not heal my heartbreak.
Meal prepping could not rewrite the stories I believed about my worth.
Sobriety could not teach me that confidence is not something you lose with age. It is something you build every time you choose yourself.
GLP-1’s could not stop the pain of grieving my mother.
Those parts were mine and have been harder to shed than the 100lbs.
This picture is not a celebration of becoming lighter in the sense of the scale, but rather of becoming freer.
The woman in the first picture was 6 months into her journey, had already lost a significant amount of weight, but was still carrying so much. Grief, expectations, perfectionism, fear, people pleasing, and years of believing she had to earn the right to take up space.
The woman in the second picture might be smaller, but she still has scars. There are still hard days and healing to be done. The difference is that she no longer believes healing must be complete before she allows herself to be seen. I am sharing these photos because I need to. I don’t want applause or validation- that has to come from within. That IS coming from within now.
I am sharing them because this is a promise I made to myself. For my own accountability that is allowing me to close a chapter that has dictated so much of my life. The moment I stood in front of this mirror and snapped a photo without immediately deleting it is the moment I stopped waiting for someone else to hand me permission to feel beautiful, powerful, or enough. This picture is my own seal of approval.
Next stop, photos ON the beach IN the bikini! (stay tuned!)
Ever after isn’t about finding the perfect ending.
It is about finding yourself after the ending you never planned.
Sometimes happily ever after looks like rebuilding after divorce, surviving grief, learning to love the reflection starting back at you… or maybe even putting on the bikini and realizing the greatest transformation was never your body.
If you are waiting until you lose the weight, until your life settles down, until your scars fade, until you become the version of yourself you think deserves joy, I hope you hear this.
Your life is happening now.
Your ever after does not begin when you become someone else.
It begins the moment you decide you have always been worth coming home to.
This isn’t about the bikini….
