Growing Up Was Never Subtle for Me

I never really had a “normal tall phase.” It was more like I just kept getting upgraded in size while everything around me stayed the same.

Growing up in Herndon, Virginia, my height was always the first thing people noticed. Before I even said a word, before anyone knew anything about me, I was already the tall girl in the room. Class photos were always a little chaotic. Desks never quite fit. Doorways became something I had to think about instead of something you just walk through without noticing.

By middle school, I was already taller than most adults. By high school, I stopped comparing myself to classmates entirely because it didn’t really make sense anymore. I wasn’t just “tall for my age”—I was just tall, period.

People used to joke about how I was “basically seven feet,” like it was an exaggeration. Eventually it stopped being funny in that way, because it wasn’t an exaggeration. My body just kept going until it reached what it is now, and life adjusted around it whether I planned for that or not.

When you grow up like that, you don’t really get to ignore your size. You learn how to move through the world carefully, how to anticipate ceilings, how to sit in chairs without testing them first, and how to answer the same questions over and over without letting it get to you.

It’s just life. Mine has always been a little louder in scale than most.