The beaches are starting to open up. At least in Cape Cod, where my family and I were able to vacation this week. Near our house, we have a bit of a private beach, which is great.

I love the beach. I love the summer. I love wearing swimsuits. Well, I love most swimsuits. For a long time, I was never a fan of bikinis. And I had a good reason to.

I have struggled with my body image for far too long. The body part I hate the most has always been my stomach and my abs. Hence, why I didn't like wearing bikinis.

Now, since I came home from school, I have lost a lot of weight as I have access to healthy, delicious food. Drew University wasn't the best place for healthy eaters and/or vegetarians like me. I also have more time to work out now that I'm at home.

However, I started falling back into my old habits again. Ordering unhealthy food from a delivery app, buying snacks, forgetting to work out. Naturally, I gained a little bit of that weight back.

Despite this, I still packed a bikini for vacation. I still wore it out. I even had my parents take photos of me wearing it. There were a lot of rocks at the beach, and I couldn't pass up that opportunity to feel like an amateur model.

Unfortunately, my parents don't know how to do a bikini photoshoot. And some of the photos had bad lighting, were out of focus, and were taken at weird angles. And by weird angles, I mean the photos had my stomach on full display.

I wasn't crazy about some of the photos. My face and hair would look great, but my lower half wasn't to my liking. I'm still not crazy about some of them. two full days later. But I didn't delete those photos. I posted them, along with photos I liked on Instagram. I captioned them with the struggles I have with my body. And I got pretty good feedback.

I decided to keep those photos on my phone and the post up on Instagram.

I feel like I need to start accepting myself and my body. I'm not going to lose weight immediately. I probably will never look like a model. I'm going to forget to work out and find myself eating unhealthily. And that's OK. As long as I try to live a healthy lifestyle, I should try to feel good about myself. I'm in my 20s — my prime! There are bigger things to worry about than my body.