Five foot Five

It's a proven fact of the human condition that we all want what we cannot have. For me it's those three elusive inch's. In the hierarchy of things, I'm a middle of the pack kinda gal. Why strive for elusive greatness when mediocrity is right there for the taking, right? There is nothing wrong with average and normal, despite what any cooler-than-thou neardowell would have you think. Well, all I've ever wanted to be was an average, normal height. 5 ft 5.
I guess it goes back to grade school (but doesn't everything though really?) Lining up in size order. Or as grammar school kids refer to it "lining up the pecking order." For a good deal of my formative years I was cool. I was tall. I was in the back of the line. Everyone knows the kids with the height in the back of the line are the ones with all the power. Why exactly, no one knows, but it carries with it a certain amount of prestige. So, there I was towards the back of the line, pickin' on the short kids, sharing jokes with my height endowed comrades. Life was good. Fast forward to the first day of school: 5th grade. It was a warm September morning. I had my new notebooks and pencils, my new jumper and school sweater. Ponytail jauntily bouncing as I made merry, reuniting after the long lazy days of summer with my school chums. Maybe we played a quick game of tag. Maybe hopscotch. I don't really recall, the details have a way of blurring around the edges with time, but life was good, life was grand, life couldn't get better. Except, you should never be silly enough to tempt the universe like that. What was to come next would forever be seared into my memories. Tattooed into my mind and imprinted in my nightmares for years to come.
The school bell. That jarring,sobering call back to reality for kids everywhere. Laughs and good cheer spread all around as I skipped with all my friends to line up. In size order of course. So enamored was I with the start of the new academic year (and maybe a little high on the smell of my new crayolas, nothing beats that smell, it was more addictive to me as a kid than peeling glue off my hands) that I didn't even notice something was amiss. So programmed we were , accustomed to are line-mates, if you will that there was no conscious thought to "size order." I just knew, year after year I stood behind Sue and in front of Tara. Except this year my for some puzzling reason Sue and Tara were no longer eye level with me. In fact, as I looked around in silent horror, most of my classmates weren't. No, this year they towered over me like Amazonian freaks. Only it doesn't work like in the grade school. Apparently not getting your invitation to the growth spurt party renders you the horizontally challenged freak. Once the stark reality of the situation dawned on my young mind, I panicked. "No!" I screamed internally., "I will not be moved to the front of the line, I can't wear that badge of disgrace all year long, think Jenn, think." So I panicked, and futilely tried to hide, but to no avail, I was caught. That morning, head hung low, backpack dragging along the pavement I was ushered to the front of the line by my new teacher. And there I remained, forever wishing for a growth spurt that would never come, always turning around from my place in the front, casting wistful looks to my old life, my old friends in the back. Disdainfully never truly accepting my new line friends: the midgets.
My mom tried to comfort me when I tried to explain how horrible my first day of school was, what with my badge of disgrace and all . She told me "don't worry honey everyone knows tall guys like shorts girls." I figured she had to be on to something. I mean she's under 5 ft, and my dad was 6'2, but that was really only a big heaping of cold comfort at that time. That didn't fix my fall in social stature.
So here I sit some 2+ decades later, bemoaning my fate. Late night I often contemplate the what ifs. What if I had grown to be 5'5,? I mean without the benefit of heels that is.How different would my life be today? Would I have been more of a leader? Would I have risen to the occasion (pun intended) more often? Taken more chances? Maybe if I had that growth spurt in the 5th grade, that would have changed the course of my destiny.
Maybe the universe owes me. Maybe I would enjoy wearing cute ballet flats.
Maybe I need to get more oxygen to my brain.
I don't know. All I do know is, I will always wonder, and wish I were 5'5