The Long and Tall of it…

The Long and Tall of it…

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. I wish for these to be the resounding words every parent inputs in their guide on-how to assist teenagers to beat the heat and survive, gracefully. Growing up was never easy, we are faced with a myriad of issues starting from appearance, acceptance, falling in love, teenage pregnancy, sibling rivalry, homelessness, addiction, crime, social alienation.
Embracing yourself with the fact that you are 5foot 11 inches tall and from the Asian continent, took years of convincing, reading, meeting the likes. I think I would associate my growing up to be related closely to social alienation, being 180cms tall. There has been not a day I woke up without the familiar feeling of self-hate creeping up on me. I am surrounded by friends who are quite small and petite which is even worse. Nobody said height had anything to do with happiness, is what my parents used to coax me into believing. I used to have maddened conversations with them on how I felt like getting my legs amputated or my neck cut and stitched to few inches smaller.
Meeting new people meant one new comment, remark to deal with. Fortunately, I was blessed with wit which would combat them all. 'Ah, do you play basketball', "how is the weather up there', 'Are your parents tall', 'Can you wear heels at all', ''Would you ever find a boy to get married to'.
Boys were always out to date the shorter, petite, fair girls, because they would feel intimidated with my presence or it’s just not the "in" thing to be dating a girl taller than you, typical case of SMS, short-man-syndrome.
I am going to be honest, I did struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence until I was 16 or until Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai won the Miss Universe and Miss World titles for India in 1994.
I was worried to have the same teasing, challenges in college as well, but miraculously things changed. It’s the new friends I had made and the recent victories at the beauty pageants. The mindset has now started to changed.
"A man is known by the company he keeps", I truly believe in this quote. The company I kept egged me to conquer all my inhibitions They were ever so encouraging and never once made me feel like an Amazon with them. No more, after that, did I feel less fortunate or missed any opportunity to move ahead in life.
Men love women who are confident in their own skin. The good news is that they have broken out of the cultural 'girl short,guy tall syndrome'. Look for yourself, Tom Cruise always dated women taller than him, Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes. What with Mike Jagger always looking up to his women, dated Amazonian Beauties, Rod Stewarts penchant for leggy blondes, George Clooney and his current lady Stacy Keibler. Infact, I read an article on a popular newspaper where Hollywood film-makers were stretching the images of their leading ladies to make them look taller and slimmer, digital surgery was the term used. We are lucky we don't need technology to stretch our legs.
This one is for all the beautiful tall girls and the problems we have to endure. Trust me, I now do believe, that height has nothing to do with happiness. Go, conquer the world.