An Amusing Question

Quite possibly the funnest question I have been asked...ever...came this week from a little girl who I'm guessing is around two years old.

I was visiting with some friends who are closely related to this girl and we were out in her backyard, looking at the goats. (Sidenote: I should go to a petting zoo sometime soon. I wasn't ever big on actually petting the animals when I was little, timidity clogging my veins the way it does.) And this little blonde looks up at me and asks,

"Are you too big?"

If I were the type of person to belly laugh right away, that might have earned it. As it was, I smiled and chuckled to myself. What a question! Pointed, curious, and about a rather obvious physical trait--my height.

My answer? "Am I too big? No, I don't think so." I hope not. I haven't yet found any hole that I was too big to crawl through that I needed to squirm into. Sometimes I hit my head on low ceilings (or support beams). And I think it will take me a long time to remember to dodge the low-hung pull tabs for the ceiling fans when I visit my best friend. But too big? No, not really.

Sure, some people can be intimidated by my six feet of height. Some people think I am more confident and poised than I am because of it (...to which I would answer, "Ha!"). Some look up to me more than literally because I carry my frame moderately well. (I actually just read a passage of a book, such a fun series, in which a tall girl is admired by her almost-beau [they're a little slow] because she carries herself straight and graceful, never trying to shrink her height around others even if she is taller [and she's taller than he is].) And some just literally look up at me. Fair enough.

It was an honest question. And despite my uncertainties at times, the occasional desire to shrink and hide, and my perpetual tendency to slouch my shoulders (lazy muscles or short tendons, I'm not sure), I do enjoy my height (which, given my family's height and the height of most people I know--my family's tall; most people I know are average to short--I tend to think of myself as average, even though I'm considered tall for a woman). Overall, I'm just used to my height.

So, no, I'm not too big. For this Goldilocks, my height is juuust right.