Evelyn Renold

Word Count 741

It’s easy to spot me in my class pictures from elementary school: I’m in the top row at the top of a pyramid, not just the tallest girl in the class, but the tallest kid. My smile looks a little forced, as if the dimples in my cheeks were being held in place by two invisible poking fingers. 

“How’s the weather up there?” grinning boys would ask me on the playground. I’m fairly certain they weren’t expecting an answer. Other kids would simply call me “Daddy Long Legs.”

School dances were a special form of torture. Most of the boys were chest high on me, which made for some excruciating moments as we attempted to box-step around the dance floor.

My parents, both tall, tried hard to instill a sense of pride in me, suggesting that tall people were members of an elite club. When I was growing up, they often expressed admiration for Bess Meyerson, who in addition to being the first Jewish Miss America, stood an astonishing-for-the-time 5’10”. 

I wasn’t buying any of it. I grew to be 5’10” myself, and though a part of me liked being different, this was too different. By the end of high school, there were a few boys I could look in the eye, but not many. And no girls. 

In college, life began to improve. I spent most of my time hanging out at the student newspaper, where no one seemed to care about my height. So I began to forget about it. 

Some fifteen years later, at a party hosted by a friend, I met the man who would share my life. J. and I liked each other immediately. Seated side by side on a sofa, we talked for hours. Then, as the evening wound down, we both stood up. Neither of us said a word, but it was clear there was a disparity between us. I was a tall woman; he was a not-tall man. 

Nonetheless, we became a couple. “We met sitting down,” J. would later explain to those who wondered how we got together. I admit I was uncomfortable at first: It had been a long time since I’d fretted about wearing heels. But J., divorced and a few years older than me, thought the height thing didn’t matter so much, and in time I came to agree. We found other unconventional couples to identify with, like the taller wife/shorter husband on TV’s iconic “L.A. Law” (played by the real-life married couple Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker). 

I mainly notice my height now when I see myself in photos, standing next to female friends. Look how tall I am, I’ll think, no judgment intended. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found real advantages to being tall, beyond reaching high shelves in the supermarket and assisting little old ladies who can’t. I eat a lot and don’t gain weight, and I wear stuff that wouldn’t really suit a shorter woman. 

I’ve lived long enough now to see some of my aging contemporaries start to shrink. Shrinking is disconcerting, and I hope it doesn’t happen to me…even if I secretly believe I could shed a couple of inches and not really miss them. 

This proves, I suppose, that some self-consciousness remains. When my Pilates teacher—a statuesque ex-dancer—recently told us we should feel two inches taller by the end of class, I registered mild alarm. For the most part, though, I’ve grown into my height. The thing that obsessed me when I was younger, that seemed to define me, doesn’t anymore. No one’s asked lately, but the weather up here is actually fine.

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Evelyn has been a top editor at national magazines, including Good Housekeeping and Lear’s, as well as at Newsday and the New York Daily News. She’s taught journalism at Fordham University and NYU and reviews books for Kirkus. As an editorial consultant, she works with writers at evelynrenold.com