On Being Short & Short of Veggies

SaturdayScribbles

Fact: I was born tall.

Twenty-four inches of tallness. I should have stayed in the womb where it was warm and fertile. Had I been able to linger there, I might have had the boost I needed to become a basketball player. But birth stunted my growth, dramatically, limiting me to five feet, one and a half inches, almost.

Fact: My life has been about figuring out how to compensate, living in the world of talls.

Growing up short—an oxymoron? —has had a few—two I can think of, compensatory advantages, such as, I can’t see what’s going on with all the talls blocking my view, but, I can wend my way (sneak) through the crowd and squirm to the front without anyone noticing or caring. And when playing hide-go-seek, I’m able to squeeze into places where no one ever suspects a person could fit. Okay, that’s all the advantages I can think of…

But, I figure, isn’t that what we all have to do? Find out how to deal with our shortcomings—so to speak. That’s why I have a stepstool where cabinets and shelves exist; that’s why I make friends of tall people in the aisles of stores; and that’s why I use booster pillows.

Fact: It’s assumed I can’t do something that’s physically challenging.

As a kid, I was given what I used to refer to as–and not in a good way–“Joey Jobs.” (I was called Joey, then.) I felt my jobs lacked importance and significance. These tasks were the ones that were in low places and took little skill, like after grocery shopping, I got to put away the hand soap and toilet paper under the bathroom sink.

Fact: I was stereotyped.

When I first set foot on the softball field, guess what position I was steered to? Yup, catcher. My coach said that it wouldn’t take much bend in my knees to keep my head below the swing of the bat. And I should be able to get on base by just standing there, never having to take the bat off my shoulder, since a pitcher would have to have an incredibly good aim to get a ball through my strike zone. I would be walked, a lot. That was his batting strategy for me.

Fact: I can hit a ball hard enough to get into the outfield.

Luckily, I was born a natural athlete and I could do well, so my size was often, “overlooked”—it’s hard to find words that don’t refer to something undersized. Sometimes it wasn’t that my stature was unnoticed, but viewed as, “look what she just did and she’s so tiny, like when I hit a homerun, stole second base, or carried the equipment bag over my shoulder. That remark always started a fire in the pit of my stomach and smoke would billow out of the top of my head. 

Fact: I like shorter people, a lot.

Standing next to a shorter person, makes me feel good. In school, I was next to the shortest kid in my class. After all these years, I still remember the name of the shortest person, that’s how significant it felt to me to not to be the smallest. To this day, when I see a short person who, from a distance, is probably shorter than I am, I make my way over and find a reason to stand close, so I can feel, well, taller. (I know—I’ve been told—that’s sick.)

Fact: The shortest person in my class was Linda Sheppard. (If you are out there, Linda, I’m sorry for calling you out, like that.)

Another fact: I don’t think “short.”

I walk around not thinking I’m less than average in height. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned to move really fast. My legs, most likely, appear a blur as I hustle along side someone with long legs. I will not ask them to slow down. I will not complain about my soaring heart rate; I will not sweat or at least I won’t let them see me become moisten—that’s why I carry tissues in my pocket.

Fact: It’s assumed that I’m not big enough to have a substantial thought.

I found, early on, that I had to come up with strategies to be seen and heard. That meant, as a short person, I had to search and develop my strengths; such as, my capability to learn big words to put with my burgeoning philosophical thoughts, political leaning, and other ideas of a curious and unfiltered mind. However, my mother mostly viewed my ranting as insolence when I questioned adults or authority. But I got attention.

Fact: Because I’m short, it’s further assumed I will always settle for the smallest piece of cake.

Why would anyone assume that? Geez!

Fact: Being taller than my granddaughter will last just so long.

Several years ago when my five-year-old granddaughter, Eowyn, wanted to bypass the vegetables and proceed directly to the chocolate ice cream dessert. Her father told her that if she didn’t start gobbling down her veggies, she’d end up being short like her Grammie Joey—as my granddaughter calls me—who didn’t eat her vegetables before dessert.

For Eowyn, I’ve been set up as the poster person for what happens to kids who eat sweets and won’t consume their greens. See my dilemma! If I claim I ate them, she has no incentive to eat her veggies…I’ve been held up to her as being a good example of a bad role model for growth.

She’s seven now and when I picked her up from school the other day, she introduced me to her friend. And for no apparent reason, she went on to explain that I was short because of my lack of vegetable intake. The kid to whom she was explaining my condition shook her head, her  eyes bugged out in disbelief and horror. Frankly, I wanted to run and hide. It’s one thing that I take-one-for-the-team in my own family; it’s quite another that this rumor is likely to spread around the school grounds, and who knows where it might migrate from there. But, I quickly defended myself to this wide-eyed kid-friend of Eowyn’s by explaining, “But I eat them now.”

“Oh Grammie,” my granddaughter said, “ you had to eat them when you were a kid. It’s too late for you now.”

After dropping her off at her house, I went home and comforted myself with a serving of chocolate cake, a big effing piece.

(For more SaturdayScribbles, scroll down to “What’s Not To Love.”)