Sitting on the beach in a Brazilian bikini with the vocabulary of an infant, I could not help but feel like the epitome of a contradiction. At the age of 33, I was not thrilled to feel like a toddler again.

I loved to fantasize about myself at a fabulous Rio rooftop bar, making a charming joke about a local cultural nuance. But the agony of the years that stood between me and this image was overwhelming. This was definitely not the first time that I was trying to manifest the magazine image in