The Other Side Of The Story

This evening, I came across a HuffPost article by Leslie Rasmussen entitled "Short Women In A Tall World."  Apparently she is about five feet tall, and this article details many of the things she finds frustrating about it, like having to have all new pants hemmed and not being able to reach things on high shelves and not being taken seriously.

I'm here to tell you that the other end of the spectrum is no picnic either.  I am about 5'10," so I feel qualified to speak for the long tall Sallys among us.  I'm not freakishly tall or anything, but certainly well above average.

If you're tall, good luck finding pants that fit.  Same problem as our shorter colleagues, except that for us the pants are always too short.  No tailor can fix that: at least pants that are too long can be hemmed.  And good luck finding cute shoes in bigger sizes that don't have 4" heels.  What dim-bulb designer thinks that people who tower over average women to begin with (i.e.  the ones likely to be wearing larger sizes) want to be three or four inches taller than they already are??

I can reach things on high shelves, I grant you.  And I have no problem with people taking me seriously.  I look the average man square in the eyeball in flat shoes, so I'm hard to dismiss.  Even those who love me most wouldn't call me 'cute'...the term just doesn't apply.  And I'm ok with that, believe me.  I'm good at basketball, I can put my own suitcase into the overhead compartment on airplanes, and my taekwondo kicks are very powerful simply because my legs are so long.

BUT.

I've been this height since I was 12.  In my entire sixth grade class, only two boys were taller than me, and we were seniors before any significant percentage of them had caught up.  (Living in Asia did not help matters either.)  Recipe for self-worth if there ever was one.  Back in the day, I got all kinds of comments about my height.  And I still do, charmingly enough: it has actually become a running joke with friends in my taekwondo class that my instructor (who is ten inches shorter than me) feels compelled to remark on it during every.single.freaking.class.  Dammit.

I'm sure everyone has something they wish they could change about themselves.  Mine would be my height.  But since giving somebody a few extra of my inches isn't really an option, I'll make all you shorter people a deal instead: you don't comment on my height, and I won't casually rest my elbow on the top of your head!