**Jean Vanier wrote a book called "Becoming Human" which I highly recommend. This was the first title that came to mind for this post, so I couldn't help myself. I encourage anyone who hasn't read this book to do so. But for now, here is my story. I hope it helps someone out there to feel a little less alone.**
The following is an excerpt from my (hopefully) up-and-coming novel.
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I am a tall girl. Forever. The word tall is such an intimate part of my life that my eyes find it automatically in print. The words Tall ship, Tall tale, Tall Glass of water have much more dimension to me than to most members of the population. When I was in sixth grade, I had passed my mother in height, although this is generally the norm for girls, my growth picked up momentum while my friends tapered off at comfortable, adolescent-friendly heights. To this day, the idea of being so consistent -even if only physically- for so long fascinates me. Upon reflection, I cannot think of a better girl than myself to soar the uncommon heights of six feet at fourteen years old.
To me, attending dances was like agreeing to wear underwear over my pants. Towering over the rest of my friends and dancing with boys who were shoulder-height (at best) was not exactly a preferred use of my time.
At 12, I remember coming up with a way to appear shorter. I would lock one knee and extend my other leg while standing this pose caused to lose about three inches in height. Even in this ridiculous stance, I was still a good 4 inches taller than most girls (and boys, for that matter) and I still missed out on the conversations meriting whispers (whispers didn’t travel up to such great heights and, for the record, they still don’t. Needless to say, I’ve never been much for gossiping).
“Jenna, I think you should suck it up. All of your friends go. What else would you do tonight?” With that I shrugged and rolled onto my stomach. It was a dead issue. I would go because I couldn’t think up a reason to do otherwise, one that my best friend Raggy would buy, anyways.
I get stuck on things that I hear people say and I agonize myself with playing them over and over in my head. I once heard a little boy tell a waiter that he did not want ice cubes in his drink: ‘Do you know what lives in those iceboxes?’ he said with a shudder. He was 13. I was 21. Since that day, it has been an interior battle for me to consume an iced drink. I am so quick to trust others but I will rarely step out onto my own reasoning. I am not a compulsive person, but I am consumed by global problems and obsessively aware of wastefulness-to the point that it causes me anxiety when I am idling in a car, or watching water go down a drain untouched by my hands or a dish.
“Your looks are changing," my father said one morning as I was pouring my cereal.
“Oh?...How so?,” I asked, nervous to hear my own observations articulated.
It had been a long time since I had felt pretty. I would spend time in the bathroom looking at myself in the mirror painstakingly analyzing which specific feature was responsible for the recent awkwardness.
My family spent weeks of our summer in the woods. We had a tent trailer before we got a ‘real trailer'. My dad would toil tirelessly in the dark to set that thing up while being ripped apart by ravenous maritime mosquitoes. I remember having sore muscles for weeks from mountain biking, kayaking, swimming, and hiking. Getting up early for once in our young lives was a true joy, and before I learned that non-biodegradable soaps hurt the wildlife I could be found in the glittering morning lake lathering up for another day with no schedule. One morning, we left the camp site to attend my cousin’s baptism in a city about 2 hours away. We scrubbed ourselves clean the best we could (hoping the rest was a tan), and piled into the van. On the way to Halifax, my mom informed me that she had scheduled me for an appointment with the geneticist at the children’s hospital in Halifax. I remember feeling wounded. I was thinking: “Wow. I am a genuine cause for concern, alarms must be going off and she is scared of making me feel like a freak.” By this time, it was too late for that.
After begrudgingly ordering blood work at my mother’s frantic request, the geneticist sheepishly called our home on a faultless blue-skied June morning:
“Mrs. Murphy, you were right. Jenna’s growth hormone came back 50 times out of range. We need to do some tests to verify the suspected presence of a tumor on her pituitary gland,” then she said not with false humility; “Mrs. Murphy, I am so sorry we didn’t listen to you sooner”.
For my mother, this was all she needed to enter into short-circuited nature that her life would inevitably assume. My mother went to bed only to lay awake; when sleep finally found her, so would dreams of illness. Her life was lived in a river of panic. I would be awakened early on Saturday morning to my mothers hasty fingers running along the lids of my (previously) closed eyes looking for puffiness. I'd open my eyes to see her own darting eyes, inches from mine, searching my face for "a coarsening of my features", attempting (unsuccessfully) to mask her concern with nearly- warm smile. For Mom, life was put on pause and she proceeded to live in purgatory.
For my part, I found it easier to believe in my own created happy endings. We all have a choice in hardship: we can look it square it the face and feign indifference or we can really become indifferent. I fell into the latter category. I distanced myself from myself so as to become immune from the increasing stares of children at the supermarket. “Mommy, that lady is sooo tallllll...”. These comments would be met by flustered, embarrassed glances my way and dismissive shushing. “Yes, darling now come over here and choose a cereal.” As I grew into other realms, my mind also dwelt in the higher regions; I smothered any discomfort in books and dreams. I told people that I had tall cousins when they inquired about my height's origins; I didn't bat an eye when inquiring about the biggest size at the shoe store. This horror show was not my concern, these weren't my problems; I am indifferent, after all. My face grew puffier and my mind grew more free because I did not live in my body. Embarrassment and shame belonged to an unnamed girl I vaguely knew while I, on the other hand, had nothing to think about but beach blankets, novels and blue skies. At least for now.
3
There is a very fine line between the lofty love of the world and its art forms, and the quickening desire for a detached way of life. I would leave the house in a pair of clicking "kitten" heels (it was the best I could do) and a high-collared jacket to go to Mass and while there I would feel a pull to leave everything behind. My heart is inclined almost equally towards the adornment of the body and the adornment of the heart. Maybe these thoughts are completely common, but to me it seems that my heart will always be a battleground where genuine sanctity tries to find solace amid a restless recognition of gifts I am tempted to call my own.
In my life, nothing has been constant. Maybe I have never felt comfortable and at home enough in my skin to set up camp. I feel that this is a major reason why I did not develop many hobbies besides the hobby of surviving. I always felt that because my physical appearance was exceptional, my life needed to be exceptional. If I wasn’t becoming better, more well-read, better acquainted with interesting people, I was wasting precious time. I still maintain some of these compulsive ideologies. I wanted to paint but I didn’t think I had the time to learn. I always felt like just around the corner, my life would be demanded of me so I needed to be ready to wrap things up at all times. Therefore, I had better not get too comfortable as a recluse knitter. Or maybe it’s not best to develop my love for writing too much. After all, learning to write well meant that one had to, well, write for long periods of time; and I thought that my time could be used doing other things. Moreover, how does one create art within art itself? At the thought of putting some of my experiences in writing, it almost felt like a cheapening. The people I encountered were art forms in and of themselves. By harnessing their beauty and trying to bottle it I didn’t feel like I was doing the world a service but, I had never allowed the world to take up anything more than a temporary residence within my heart. Up until this point, I had resorted to what Catholicism calls “the last things”. The things that, at the end of ones life, would still hold. I had no time for anything temporary. So with that, the only thing that has held my consistent attention over the years had been my faith in God. And if I were only concerned with this, I needed to read a few pages in His notebook.
I had somehow neglected the fact, however, that even God became human. He took the time to invest.
