It sounds silly, but my entire life is influenced by my height. People, including my friends, gawk and comment about my height daily. For a long time, I felt like I wasn’t feminine enough, or that I took up too much space, or the extra centimeter of skin showing where my too short jeans rode up was a beacon screaming, “I don’t fit in.”
When people come up to me in public places and tell me how tall I am or ask me about my participation in what I like to think of as the trifecta—basketball, volleyball or modeling—I’m no longer hurt or embarrassed. If anything it’s more of a nuisance. Sometimes people’s first impressions of me are skewed negatively because the first thing they talk to me about is my height. I hope I learn to handle the comments with more grace, but I still wonder why people think that it’s okay for them to make personal observations about how tall I am. It’s not that I don’t understand the curiosity, because I do, but why complete strangers have to comment on my height when they would never dream of coming up and remarking with such cheery bluntness on someone’s weight or looks is so beyond me.
The worst part about being tall was never the comments people made, or the hassle of finding pants that are long enough, but feeling so uncomfortable in my own skin. For a long time I tried to make myself small. But I learned that you can hunch your shoulders, duck behind people or pull your knees to your chest when you sit, but it changes nothing. You just become the “tall girl with the bad posture.” My height is unavoidable and a constant reminder that I will stick out in almost every situation I’m in. Sticking out, especially in high school, isn’t something that’s particularly fun or cool.
The fact of the matter is I can’t do anything about my height. There is no operation that will shrink me, and I can’t go back in time and be reborn short. While it’s true my height is almost always the first thing people notice about me, it’s not the only thing people notice, and learning that lesson has been valuable. I’m done apologizing and done being ashamed of my height. Being so concerned about something that is impossible to change is a complete waste of time. It is so much easier to use my height as an advantage; when I stand up and speak, people pay attention to me and listen to what I have to say. The more I’ve come to accept my height as just one small extension of who I am, the easier it is to be comfortable in my body.
– By Ava Johnson
