WINNING MISS BIKINI WORLD

My 20’s were proving to myself and everyone else I was beautiful, followed later by my 30’s where the focus was on proving that I was smart, and not the brainless bimbo I was once presumed as a Swimsuit Model.

It was in fact my early 20’s after my excruciatingly painful boob job that I began to make the transition from local promo girl on the Gold Coast to Model. And believe me when I say, in a World, (and I assure you, it’s another World), that is built on the external, it is considered a mammoth promotion.  The ego immediately takes flight and begins to want to cosmetically trump all. Aiming possibly towards the next procedure that might take you one step closer to perfection even. (Not that everyone in the industry admits to, or has those procedures),  but I did always joke about the varying status of the so called ‘beautiful people’. They would be classified as the naturally beautiful girls, the girls that pay good money to be more beautiful, and are open about it, and the ones that lie about their procedures because they don’t want the naturally beautiful ones to know, well, that they have had to try I guess.  I have seen girls with these huge Angelina style lips take cheap shots at girls that had their lips injected with filler calling them ‘wannabe’s’.

I began entering various swimsuit competitions with my newly inflated chest where I went from a C cup to a DD, in the most painful operation ever. I thought I was going to die.

One of the competitions I entered in to was an ‘Australian Swimsuit Calendar’ quest. I got through the local one and won that, then through to the State one, and won a car in that. I then appeared in the swimsuit calendar that year, Australia’s version of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue.  All the people who bought the calendar were asked to vote for their favourite girl, and that girl would grace the cover the following year and be sent to the Bahamas to represent Australia in the ‘American Dream Model Search’. I subsequently won that, and found myself among 65 contestants in Nassau, in the Bahamas vying for the title of ‘American Dream Girl’.  I’d had a nightmare that was not quite the American dream  the night before the final, that they had announced Miss Austria as the winner, in the dream I thought they’d said Australia, and walked forward to collect the flowers and tiara that did not belong to me! So of course, on the night when they actually did choose me, Miss Australia, to appear in the American Dream Girl Calendar, I just stood there, startled –  frozen. The whole room went blurry and shaky, and I thought, No way! There is no way the winner could be me.  All the memories and insecurities I’d held on to of being teased about my appearance as an awkward child with bucked teeth, revisited me in an avalanche of confusion self doubt, so loud I couldn’t think straight.  There must be a mistake, I thought. Maybe they said Austria, and my dream had been forewarning me? I’m not good enough to take out this whole thing,  I feel too bloated to win today!   Reaching out for a prize that wasn’t mine would make me look like a dead set idiot if I had not heard the announcement correctly.  I could just imagine the whole auditorium erupting in laughter, as the song Calendar girl was blaring in my ears.

In retrospect, I can see that fear of rejection or not being good enough, close enough to perfection was crippling my mind body and spirit.  I wasn’t able to be in the moment or enjoy the moment while I was in that state.  Obviously, I’d somehow  blocked the ability to accept good things while I was busy bracing for the worst case scenario in life,  so I just stood there like a true Git, wondering what to do. I felt this American girl named Vivian next to me nudging me forward, but it just wasn’t registering at all.  Finally after what seemed like the Worlds longest analysis of everything I did take the strut to the front of the stage, and did my best to try and embrace the win.   I knew I’d certainly blitzed the interview, I had all the judges in stitches and I wasn’t ever trying to be funny, I was just my very real self in that interview always looking to the funny side. I was used to making a similar splash out and about as a promo model, but seriously this was no local promo. I was standing next to girls who actually do courses on this stuff, and spend their lives entering pageants, In the Bahamas!  They’d come from all over the world to be evaluated by a discriminating panel of judges, not a bunch of drunk men with their bellies full of booze at the Indy on the Gold Coast like what I was used to. So I’d left it totally up to the Bikini High Court of appeal,  hoping my package cut the mustard.   Alas, the “package” did OK that night! I collected my flowers, my tiara, and my trophy — and headed for the nearest hot dog stand. I was so hungry, not only for hot dogs but also for someone to share the excitement. There really wasn’t much love coming my way from the other contestants to be honest with you.

Here I was, feeling like the odd man out again, and at a moment that should have been by rights,  wonderful!  Wasn’t this what I’d always wanted I thought to myself as I recalled the boys at school calling me ‘Renads’ (apparently that’s Renee with balls – because I looked like a boy).

When someone wins on TV, it appears they are all huddling and hugging, genuinely happy for the winner, even overjoyed.  I can’t begin to describe the energy coming from that huddle of 65 cranky hungry girls, all pretending to be happy in front of the cameras but inwardly seething. Muttering I bet she slept with someone.   I’ve since learned that triumphs of any kind really are joyless victories when there is no one to share them with.  How could I have come this far I thought,  done this well, and still not be feeling happy, and further be able to find someone in the vicinity that might be happy for me.   Happiness was to be this very destination I’d thought,  the place where my teeth were straight and white, my boobs were big, and my hair was long, bouncy, and perfectly topped by a winner’s tiara.  I had all of this and more, so why did I sit in the hotel that night scoffing mini bar chocolates one after another?  From my happiness list, I’d checked off all the major items, and yet there I sat still feeling not even close to ‘there yet’. Wherever ‘there’ is.

I returned to Australia and immediately launched into various media events. I’d caught a stomach bug on the plane and was violently ill when I returned. Tracy Grimshaw, a well-known, articulate, and fairly aggressive journalist, interviewed me for a morning show the morning I returned.  I can’t remember the whole interview as I was white as a ghost and literally vomiting a minute before we went live. I do remember, though, an undertone of what seemed like digs at me.  Her comments and leading questions seemed to be insinuating, that I was not your classic slender skinny model, and so what did I have to I say about women starving themselves for magazines, or to make the grade as a model?  I’d just deplaned from a 24-hour flight, I was tired, I’d recently conquered my Mt. Everest to happiness — and not found it up there.  Instead, I was feeling down in the dumps, and I took it that she was calling me fat — or at least, fatter than she expected. What hope did I have, considering that I’d eliminated carbs from my diet and was in the best shape I could possibly be in at 53kgs and 5’8? What more could I have done? The feeling of not being a worthy winner crept in.  I went on to say it’s important to be a positive role model for young girls getting into the industry.  What I really felt like saying was, Lady, I’d like to see you get up there in a bikini in front of the whole world when you are not naturally thin, when you feel like you were born ugly, and actually fake the confidence to go ahead and win the stupid contest!  And then after doing all of that, how would you like to face insinuations that your win was a fluke or you that you don’t look like a worthy winner?

Now 20 years on,  and I understand modelling,  media, TV, and the nature of all related beasts, I can see  that her comments weren’t at all personal and that the weight issue was probably more of an “angle” she figured would be interesting – even inspiring  — to non-skinny viewers.  And she obviously didn’t know very much about my childhood awkwardness or my lack of self-worth in that moment.  It’s so true what they say, everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about.  But it sure felt like an attack on me at the time.  I was fast learning that inner confidence   doesn’t necessarily accompany the sash, trophy, and tiara.

Here was yet another example of the struggle to a desired destination, only to feel emotionally ripped off upon arrival.

The comments made by the journalist and misinterpreted by me triggered that little tap on the shoulder that I often talk about, the ugly monster who constantly roars, “You’re not worth it, no matter what you do and you are not there yet!  The way I reacted to that suggestion made me bottle anger and bust out in the worst Acne imaginable.

If only I could have seen back then that self-worth was to be one of my biggest lifetime lessons I would have welcomed its challenges and embraced them – maybe. Hindsight is rarely of any use to any of us.  But I do now believe, if we can see difficult situations as lessons to be learned as they are unfolding  we have a choice as to how we will respond to them, and work out what they might be trying to show us.   When we are no longer a slave to automatic, unconscious feelings and reactions,  we finally can act on more examined perceptions, and in a manner that serves our personal journey best, and can help us make sense of what is happening in our life.  The lesson is then learned, and we do not have to keep on attracting similar experiences and repeating the same old lessons time and time again. Naturally back then, my unlearned lessons presented their sad storylines over and over. In all things from work to relationships, and everything in between.

Holding the title I had just won, only placed more pressure on me to be more than what I was.  I didn’t want to turn up to sign the Calander and hear things like I cant believe she won, or she’s a bit fat.  The pressure was now even more enormous to maintain a standard that didn’t come naturally to me.

I booked in for liposuction, tummy and hips.  Here is my ‘before photo’ back fat, hips and tummy.  Need I say more about how a perfectionist beats themselves far harder than anyone else ever could or would. A picture really does say more than 1000 words. And the biggest fight really is always with yourself.

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