A Story with Legs

I got home from vacation and a lot was happening. The Today Show filmed in Oshkosh, I was talking to NPR to be interviewed on Talk of the Nation, and a book editor contacted me! Why was my story getting all this attention? It had sprouted legs and was picking up speed, but I was keeping up. I read most of the comments on my post (which is now just nytimes.com/tallgirl , the permanent URL!) and found a lot of posts that started out with something like, "This is like a page out of my diary" or "This is my story," "I could have written this." There were so many women who posted, as short as 5'9" or as tall as 6'8", who had the same anxiety about their height growing up. I was glad to have sparked a conversation where tall women could see that they were never alone, that there are tall women everywhere and each of us has a story about our height issues.
It comforted me to know that people shared my anxieties, and it made me even more proud to be tall and confident. I also began to think about all sorts of people and their hangups on body image.