At the Airport

I was flying home last week after visiting family for Christmas. Waiting in line to board the airplane, I asked about some information from a fellow passenger, who happened to be a tall young gentleman. He answered me with a much friendlier smile than the question warranted, and I could tell that he was obviously appreciative of seeing a female of his stature. He got in line behind me.

"Hi."
(Hi? hmm, he must be interested). "Hi."
"You know, you are very-"
"No, don't say it. Don't say it!" (I was feeling a little playful)
"....Beautiful. You thought I was going to say tall, didn't you?"

Ha! Not a bad pickup line actually, but I wasn't swooned.

Tall Girls with Short Hair

Woohoo, I got my hair cut....just in time for winter, hehe. It was short before, but now it is shorter.


The irony of it is that I adore long hair. I just love the images of young maidens with their long tresses blowing wildly about them in the breeze.....but the fact of the matter is that I look better with short hair. Every couple years I forget this fact and try to grow it out long, but then the sight of it shocks me back into reality. Oh well. On the plus side, it is a lot easier to manage. :)

Tall Equality

As a tall girl, people ask me all the time about my height. Apparently, it is very unusual for a female to be so tall. But what about tall guys? Is it unusual for them to be so tall too? Do they get all the questions like I do? I often wonder about this. My educated guess is that for guys of my height (6'3") people probably don't think anything of them being that tall. However, for extremely tall guys (6'8" and above) maybe it is a different story. Any tall guys out there feel free to weigh in on this.

At the Grocery Store

Today as I was exiting Walmart, an obnoxious lady noticed my height from the entryway where she was getting her cart. Even though I hadn’t even noticed her, she started talking to me as if we were in the middle of conversation.

“Well, look at you. You are damn tall.”
She was definitely not humble, she was rude. So I ignored her and kept walking.
“Hey! Excuse me!”
I continued to ignore her and walked on past and out of the sliding doors. I could hear her muttering behind me.
“Well, she’s too damn tall.”

The more I thought about this encounter, the more upset it made me. What had she expected me to do? She was the one who had called out to me in such rude fashion. No doubt if I had stopped to talk to her she would only have said more rude things. And what the heck did she mean that I was too damn tall? Like it’s something to be ashamed of? Like something’s wrong with me? Like it’s something I had any control over?

It took me a while to cool down from that one.

Renting a Video

I saw Wall-E in the theatre and loved it. I had an urge to watch it again this weekend, so today I went to the video store and grabbed the last copy. Lucky me! As I was reaching into my purse to find my credit card, the clerk asked somewhat timidly (or perhaps in awe),

"How tall are you?"
She sounded appropriately humble, so I decided to answer.
"6'2"
Sometimes I say 6'3". I like to vary it.
"I know what it's like to be tall." She didn't look tall to me. "I'm 5'9" and I remember the things the kids used to say about me back in school when I was taller than everyone else."
She sounded like she wanted me to commiserate with her, so I commiserated.
"Yeah, I know what that's like."

I shouldn't have said it though, because it's a lie. I never got made fun of in school for being tall, at least not to my face. I was known as the smart kid, or the bookworm, but never the tall kid. Oh, people recognized that I was somewhat above average in height, but I can't recall a single time anyone in school said anything negative about it.

However, I have heard this sentiment from several other tall women. A lot of them were talked about or made fun of in school for being tall. And honestly, probably also for being large, a logical side effect which sometimes comes with being so tall.

Do people really think that their height/size is something these women had control over? To anyone who ever did this, shame on you.

Do I Embrace my Height?

A friendly commenter wished me well on my new blog and said that she hoped I embraced my height. This got me thinking, and doing a self-analysis that I haven't done in quite some time. Do I embrace my height? I'm sure that everybody has something about theirself that they need to learn to accept. And I know that I have met other tall women who it seemed to me were struggling with this very issue. For my part, after a very short analysis, I already knew the answer. Yes, I do.

Now this wasn't always the case. I distinctly remember being uncomfortable with my height during my awkward teenage years. I was very, very shy, and I hated that people always stared at me because of it. I also remember feeling clumsy, as if my soul wasn't big enough to fill up the body that it was in. But somewhere along the way, as the years passed, I finally grew into my skin.

I don't even think about it, really. It's just who I am. And to be honest, most of the time I even enjoy the attention it brings. I usually find myself walking down the street with a confident step and head held high, because I know that people notice me. And from the many comments that I've heard over the years, I figure that it's the good kind of noticing. Who doesn't enjoy a little attention? It's the same sort of confidence as knowing that you have dressed particularly well today.

It's just who I am. It's my share in life. And I have to say, it's not half bad.

Say What?

As I was walking the 4 blocks from my work to my car downtown this evening, a scruffy-looking man fell into step beside me. He turned to me and eyed me from head to toe and back up again, and then remarked "I bet when you was in high school your nickname was Shorty!" This sort of remark falls into the category of the "less-annoying" things that people usually say to me, so I laughed cheerfully and kept walking. Then he eyed me again and said "But I bet you changed all that though" before he walked on.

I generally brush off these sorts of encounters as they are very brief, but I couldn't help wondering as I walked the rest of the way to my car: what the heck did he mean?