I get it. I’m not alone in this. I can’t think of a single woman who loves everything about the way she looks in a bathing suit.

Before today, I hadn’t purchased a bathing suit in five years. It wasn’t like I really needed a new one. It wasn’t sagging from over-use and I had stopped growing before I got it. Before then, my body wasn’t something I’d thought of very much. The first word that came to mind was short. That was a remnant of the before era.

I have put off this task for a long time. I think the hope was that the voice that spiraled me into my eating disorder would shut the hell up, but that’s a tall order. As time goes on, Ed has become more of a whisper.

But bathing suits. Even thinking about it makes Ed a bit louder. It’s showing a lot of skin—my stomach and thighs and nearly everything else. And, okay, I haven’t been to the gym in months. Both time and fear have played a role in that. I have had points in my life when exercise was completely compulsive and obsessive. So I knew my body was not what it was at one point. I’ve grown sedentary and part of me hates it, but I know that I come first. Not Ed.

I’d like to say that the bathing suit I just bought was the one that makes me feel the best. I’d be lying if I said that; I think it looks fine, maybe even good. But the truth is, I ordered it online. I didn’t spend hours crying in a dressing room and scrutinizing my flaws. I thought it looked fine and not ridiculous on the model. It was the minimal effort solution.

But to me, that’s what counted. It wasn’t avoiding the problem. It was a solution. As much as I wanted to never, ever, buy one again, I like this new bathing suit. And as strange as it is to admit, I don’t hate how I look in it. And that is progress.