Friday, July 29, 2011

Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words still really hurt me

Be forewarned: Huge pity party and massive amounts of self loathing ahead!


I've lost 66 pounds in the past 11 months but I'll always be a "big girl."  I'm 6'2" and there is nothing I can do about that.  My body type will never allow me to be super skinny, I'm always going to have curves, a booty and a chest.  It's just the way it is.  I've accepted this fact.  I look better than I have in at least a decade.

So, why is it when a complete stranger calls me a "big girl" I get my feathers ruffled?  Sometimes its meant as an insult (like it was today) and sometimes its by a sleazy guy on the subway trying to hit on me.  The latter, I'm assuming, means it as a compliment.  But used in either context I get upset.  It's when I'm called a "big girl" that I'm reminded of how much weight I still have to lose...

I understand that a lot of the "big girl" connotation comes from my height and that is what upsets me the most.  Unfortunately it was the way I was made.  People always tell me that they wish they could be as tall as me.  I get it from at least one stranger a day, and I always always tell them that no...they don't.  They want to be tall, but they don't want to be as tall as me.  They don't realize that when you are as tall as me you can never find pants that are long enough, that you can't wear button down shirts because the arms and torso lengths aren't long enough, that you don't fit into airplane seats without being in severe pain, that you have to duck to fit beneath shower heads in most hotels, that you sometimes have to duck through doorways (and sometimes don't duck enough and hit your head painfully hard), that people will blatantly stare at you on the street as if you are a circus freak, and the worst thing that they don't tell you is that your dating life will suffer.  (This is more for the girls wanting to be my height I guess.)

It's been my entire life of thinking that there was something wrong with me because I was never looked at as "more than a friend."  My.  Entire.  Life.  I mean, I was 6 feet tall by the time I was 13.

This has given me so many complexes over the years.  Its why I thought I was ugly.  It's why I drowned my sorrows in food and therefore gained massive amounts of weight.  It's not my fault I am tall, but yet I suffer because of it every day.  If there was anything I could do in this world to make me shorter, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Being tall has made my life insanely difficult and I'm tired of it.  I'm tired of having something I can do nothing to control be the bane of my existence.  I can change my weight.  I can change my hairstyle and color.  I can change the clothes I wear, but I can't change the fact that I'm 6'2" flat footed.  I thought I had gotten past hating my height, but its obvious that I haven't.  I wish this didn't cause me so much pain.  I know people are just going to tell me to "love myself for who I am..." etc, etc, etc but I'm finding that incredibly hard to do today.

I just need to face the facts that I'm going to die alone.  I've lived the past 30 years of my life alone, what's another 40-50, right?

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, I have the same reaction whenever someone calls me "big guy." Even though I know that they may not mean what I think they mean, I will forever hear it in context of my weight; no matter how small I may get.

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  2. Someone yelled "Shamoo!" at me the other day while running...and on a date recently a guy repeatedly told how great it is that I'm a "renaissance" woman. So I know what you mean and I get really tired of it too!

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  3. I think you are absolutely beautiful and that your height is an asset-- but I can understand how it can also be a burden. I hope the times you see it as a blessing come to far outweigh the down times. I know it doesn't mean as much hearing me say that I think you are lovely, but I truly have faith that there IS someone (hell, there really are countless someones) who will adore your height and most importantly, everything about you.

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