Written On My Body

I'm tall. This is not a shock to most people--well, the fact that I'm tall is not a shock. My actual height has astounded people for years. By most standards, I'm a very tall woman at 5 feet 11 inches. I have been this tall since I was 13. No, I don't play basketball. I am about as coordinated as an orangutan on roller skates much to my dismay and thwarted attempts to learn how to dance. 

I am also not a delicately put together person. I used to be fat. REALLY fat. I'm still not petite, but I am fairly normal-sized...at least for someone of my height. This often defies my need to be invisible. It's incredibly hard to go unnoticed. Ninja I am not. It certainly doesn't help living in Asia where I am surrounded by petite, delicate, graceful, and elegant looking short people. 

People stare. I think this is a given. I've sort of gotten used to it. Most days. 

What I haven't gotten used to is seeing myself. I think this is the hardest kind of looking to do. When you spend a great deal of your life waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting...when it's time to go and do and be...it's hard to see where you're supposed to be going. I think most people forget to look at a map or if they do, they start worrying about not having the right tools or enough time.

Some days I wake up and look in the mirror and all I can see is an aging face and wasted time. Like Bella in Twilight, I imagine I look like my own grandmother, but inside I am still 26, no 27, no 28. I think when you come unstuck in time, it takes a minute to look around and figure out where you've landed. It's scary and frightening and often unpleasant. It's a little bit like being stared at by people who can only see the shape of your body, and not the person. Only, you're the one doing the staring. I'm the one doing the staring and I can't stop. I immobilize myself. There's a Mat Kearney song that says "choose one, baby, your head or heart. Is this the game that I have played from the start?...one road opens and one road ends." 

I truly believe that our lives are written on our bodies and not just in wrinkles or the clothing choices we make. I think written on our bodies are our own beliefs and fears. I'm a terrible liar; the truth is always written all over my face. But I also believe that we shape the words we allow others to see in and on our skin and selves. If I believe my life is wasting away, others will see this. If I believe my life stretches in front of me, I will see this.

The other day a student caught me "dancing" in the library/my classroom. It was so unexpected, I screamed and laughed at the same time when I saw him standing in the doorway/shocked. I jokingly called out "Tell no one!" He assumed I was ashamed--I was. When he left, I thought "This is ridiculous. I'm just having fun before my day begins. Don't I deserve to be fun?" So rather than being embarrassed, I danced. A little horrifying in memory for me, I think the students who wandered in while I danced and wrote things on the board were a little bemused. I think they were happy because I was. I think they laughed because I did. And I think for just a moment, we shared a moment of invisibility because my body stopped mattering...to me.