Growing Up Tall Wasn't the Hard Part

When people find out I'm 6'11.5", they usually want to know one thing: what was it like growing up that tall?

The funny thing is that being tall wasn't actually the hardest part.

The hardest part was being noticed all the time.

I was already 5'10" when I finished sixth grade. At twelve years old, I was looking teachers in the eye. Strangers assumed I was in high school. Adults would ask me questions that made sense for a sixteen-year-old and then look confused when they found out I was barely a teenager.

By fourteen, I was 6'4". By fifteen, 6'7". At a certain point there was no hiding it. No oversized hoodie was going to make me blend into a crowd.

For a while, I hated that.

I think a lot of people imagine being unusually tall is like having a superpower. Sometimes it is. Reaching things is great. Never losing your friends in a crowd is convenient. But when you're young, all you really want is to fit in. Being the tallest person in every room means fitting in is never really an option.

The thing that saved me from making my height my whole identity was my family.

Both of my parents are tall. My dad is over 6'7" and my mom is 6'1". In our house, height wasn't remarkable. It wasn't something we discussed endlessly. It wasn't treated like a problem that needed solving.

My mom's attitude was basically, "Okay, you grew again. We need bigger shoes."

That sounds simple, but it mattered.

Because if the people closest to you treat something as normal, eventually you start believing them.

These days I'm grateful for my height in a way I never was at thirteen. Modeling helped with that. Art helped with that. Growing up helped with that.

I still get stared at sometimes. I still get questions from strangers. That's probably never going away.

But I don't spend energy wishing I were smaller anymore.

For years I thought confidence meant learning how to blend in.

What I've learned instead is that confidence means being okay with standing out.