 |
I am one of them. A tall thing. I never wanted to be large, tried to hide it, to not to take advantage, slumped my shoulders and skulked in the back. Adept at changing light bulbs and reaching the high shelf at the grocery store seemed a small reward for being singled out, pushed to the front of the crowd to face down the older bully, enduring the hatred of that kid who'd kill to be one inch taller, tired of hearing that anything I was good at, basketball, baseball, trivia questions, science, was solely because I was big. But I didn't believe any of it. I knew I wasn't really tall. It was some trick of the light. An illusion. Magic. A joke.
In 1995, at 27, through some miracle of therapy and prayer and diet and television and sex and friendship and meditation and sobriety and dogs and good shoes and who knows what else, I caught a glimpse of myself in the storm door of the apartment I was living in, and for the first time, I thought to myself, I'm huge. I've only gotten larger since. I'm now twelve feet tall. If I look smaller to you it's because of the light.
|
|
|
|
|
