The Tower (or, Money Makes You Desperate)

I got to this point my senior year of college after I moved back from Washington, DC where I realized that if I were going to buy a car, I would need some kind of cash to fund such a purchase. As I had abandoned my cush library job before I moved to DC, I now had to get creative about how to find such fundage without committing a felony or selling my organs. One of the solutions I hit on was to enter a bunch of writing contests, something I hadn't done since this Major Horrifying Debacle in sixth grade where I entered a terrible poem into a contest as a joke, but because I will never understand other people's taste in poetry the dumb thing actually won, got published in a book, and made me stand on stage to recite said terrible poem to the Illinois Poet Laureate in pure shame. HORROR.

I guess I'm one of those people who get desperate in the face of poverty because, when faced with lack of cash, I swallowed my PTSD, pulled together a handful of essays I'd written over the last couple years, cranked out a couple poems, and brain dumped a few of my many, many, many thoughts about being tall into what was more a glorified journal entry than it was a creative nonfiction piece. I submitted all these pieces to a couple writing contests and, to my surprise, a few them won, enough that I managed to scrape together sufficient cash to purchase my beloved Phoebe while somewhat getting over the residual terror of the Major Horrifying Debacle of 2004.

One of the winners was The Tower, that glorified journal entry about being tall. To this day it remains one of my favorite pieces I've ever written, not because it's my best work, but because the process of writing it was extremely insightful and still holds true. There are three things about me that often surprise others when they spend enough time with me to peer under the surface: I'm utterly abysmal at self-reflection, I am extraordinarily insecure, and I'm not easily vulnerable. Writing The Tower was an exercise of all three of these weaknesses: sharing a pointed self-reflection on one of the things about me that has served as a deep source of insecurity over the course of my life very publicly and very vulnerably with a panel of judges for evaluation.

The process of writing this piece and, ultimately, submitting it were more valuable to me than the validation that came from winning. I share it here now for posterity, and to remind myself of the strength that has been borne from that which often makes me feel defeated.

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The Tower

Shoulders back, chin up, spine straight, head high.

For the better part of my 22 years, this directive has been my constant companion. It can usually be heard from my mother, hissed under her breath as she places her hand on the small of my back and shoves with all her might, forcing me to straighten into my 6’2” frame. And, for the better part of my 22 years, this directive has served as the battle cry for my perpetual war with my height.

I come from a family of tall people, one of those families that draw surprised stares from shorter passersby whenever we stand in line for a movie, enter into a restaurant, walk down the street. We hit our heads on low ceilings, intimidate small children, reach the highest shelves with ease.

My bedtime stories as a child consisted of the usual nursery rhymes and fairy tales, but my favorites were the stories of the giant Paul Bunyan (my first crush), Dad’s growth spurt, and Mom’s growing pains, all feeding the hope of my own impending gift of height.

I knew it was coming—one of my earliest memories is from the ripe age of three as I sat impatiently in the Doctor’s office, waiting with my mother for the results of my physical. I squirmed on the white examining table, my little feet dangling in midair, eyeing the colorful stickers sitting tantalizingly in their jar by the door and wondering if I had been good enough to deserve a prize. The doctor entered the room, clutching a manila folder and stroking his balding head absentmindedly.

“Mrs. Wildman?” He asked, looking up at my mother with apprehension. “Her growth is off the charts.”

My mom, far from adopting the usual parental pattern of worry at the news their child was an anomaly, brightened. “Really? How tall?”

“At this rate, she’ll be at least 6’2” by the age of eighteen.”

I wasn’t old enough then to understand the magnitude of this number, but I knew it was big and I knew my parents were excited. That night, I got my first basketball hoop, a plastic Fischer Price ordeal that shaped the course of my athletic future. I was excited to be tall. I couldn’t wait.

And then the growth spurt hit.

It was agony. I spent long nights in bed tossing in pain as invisible hands clutched at my limbs and stretched them far outside their comfort zones. My muscles ached, my bones cracked. In third grade, I grew three inches in two months, limping uncomfortably on my wobbly new legs. I incurred scar after scar on my hands and knees as I tripped over anything within a ten-foot radius, trying desperately to adjust to my massive new feet and my elongating limbs that never stayed where they were only the day before.

At the time, however, I considered this pain a small price to pay for my glorious height. While other kids in elementary school floundered to find some talent or feature to dictate their identity, mine was conveniently built in to my genetic code. I didn’t have to be the funny girl, or the pretty girl, or the athletic girl—I was the tall girl. I was proud. Basketball quickly became my greatest talent; all anyone had to do was lob the ball aimlessly into the air and I could easily scoop it into my large hands and shoot it into the hoop, well out of reach of the pathetic pairs of waving arms hovering two feet below my own. Kate Wildman, the tall girl. It had a nice ring.

This pride, like so many other naïve childhood emotions, did not last. Soon I was eleven, nearly five-eight, and entering the jungle of middle school. On my first day of sixth grade I entered the imposing brick building, brimming with excitement and new notebooks, hardly noticing how much higher my head towered above my peers who rushed around me in the narrow hallways. My teachers, however, were more than happy to alert me to this difference:

“My, you’re a tall one! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Tell me you play basketball. Please tell me you’re not letting that height go to waste!”

“You have to be the tallest kid in the class!”

I was. In fact, I was soon the tallest person in the entire school, towering not only over my classmates but also over my teachers. I began to slouch, trying desperately to blend in with my peers. By eighth grade graduation I was nearly my estimated height, a towering six feet while my classmates hovered comfortably around my midsection and sent murmured jabs after me down the halls. I was an anomaly. I was a freak.

Middle-schoolers belong to a certain ring of hell, boasting a disarming capacity to diagnose and magnify the insecurities of their victims—whether parents or classmates or innocent passersby. Ironically, aware of their own maliciousness, they pray for nothing more than the common grace to blend in and avoid as much ridicule as possible until the heavens open, purgatory is exited, and the sanctifying pleasure of high school abolishes the remnant of pre-teen angst.

My height rendered the blessing of blending in impossible. I set about the task of making myself invisible, seeking to avoid attracting the attention and inevitable contempt of my peers, but was constantly faced with the fact that I had quite literally morphed into someone who physically could not avoid notice.

I slumped.

“Stand up straight!” My parents told me, grabbing my shoulders and thrusting them back uncomfortably, forcing me to my full potential.  “Shoulders back, chin up. It’s beautiful to be tall! Be proud!” I couldn’t. How could I stand tall when no boys would dance with me at the eighth grade dance because I couldn’t spin under their low-hanging arms? How could I, when all the popular girls were all 5’1”? How could I, when I entered high school and heard the whispers, saw the pointing fingers, felt the stares prickling the hairs on the back of my neck?

My parents persisted, their bony hands pushing into the small of my back. Shoulders back, chin up, spine straight, head high. I rolled my eyes. They didn’t understand.

The only time I felt at ease with my height was on the basketball court. As other girls began to grow, my primitive stand-still-catch-ball-chuck-blindly-at-basket technique no longer produced the results I wanted and I began to work harder at my basketball game than I had worked at anything in my life. I dribbled, I shot, I conditioned, spending hours upon hours in the gym, my backyard, anywhere with a hoop. I was good. Coaches took an interest in me and my teammates counted on me; my height opened doors to play on travel teams and basketball clinics and even began talks of a college career. For four hours every day I could escape the judging eyes in the hallways and use my burden to my advantage.

It was the best when my opponents would make comments. I was best at defending, relishing in the satisfaction of blocked shots and digging my elbows into any vulnerable soft spots that would send my competition tripping, ball rolling out of bounds. The girls I defended progressively became angrier and angrier as the game continued, their muttered insults only fueling my confidence.

“Dammit!” Tiffany, one of my biggest rivals, was the easiest to frustrate, constantly cursing under her breath as I blocked her shots and stalled her play. “How the hell did you get so freaking tall?”

I laughed, pushing her away from the reach of her teammate’s pass and swatting a the ball away with my hand. “I dunno,” I smirked, “but it sure isn’t helping you much.”

“What I would give…”she trailed off, shoving me hard in the gut and sprinting down the other side of the court, ponytail bobbing angrily. I’d follow in hot pursuit, grinning, reveling in her jealously and the energy of each long stride.

But, as is the case with most teenage girls, fleeting shades of confidence never last long. For every basket I scored there was some embarrassing remark to counteract my pride, where some passerby found it their God-given task to inform me of the obvious.

“You’re tall!” they would exclaim, eyes widening. I began to get snarky.

“You’re kidding!” I would gasp, looking down at my feet. Meeting their eyes, I’d raise my brows, roll my eyes and quip, “Have you not seen the rest of the world?”;  “Maybe compared to you…”;  “No one has ever told me that before!”; “Are you serious? When did that happen?”

They were the worst in shoe stores. As I strolled down the Target shoe aisles one afternoon, innocently working to find a nice pair of flats that could magically fit my mammoth feet, I saw them: a beautiful pair of patent leather stilettos with pointed toes and four-inch heels. I desperately wanted a pair of heels, but was terrified of the exponential comments and incredulity they would inevitably incur from my shorter counterparts. This time, I couldn’t resist. I dropped my sensible shoes and reached for the gleaming pair atop the rack, scrambling into the stilettos against my better judgment.

Man, they did great things for my legs. I felt like a million bucks, strutting back and forth in front of the mirror, gazing adoringly at my sophisticated silhouette. My height didn’t matter in those shoes—I was only adding insult to injury, right? I stood up straight, proud and confident.

As I wobbled down the aisles of Target trying to find my mom to show off my refined new look, I heard a little gasp coming from somewhere far, far below me. I met the wide eyes of a little girl whose jaw had just hit the floor.

“Hi,” I said, my confidence beginning to wane as I watched her tremble, frozen in place. She finally turned around and as she ran around the corner, knocking down shoe boxes with her flailing arms and ducking into the aisles filled with shoes much more sensible than those wobbling under my long legs, I heard her yell, “Mommy, mommy come quick! I found a giant!”

I abandoned the stilettos. Tall girls in tall shoes? Ridiculous! What was I thinking?

I continued to keep my head down and avoided mirrors until I was finally forced to square my shoulders once and for all my sophomore year of high school. I was coming off of a rough summer season of basketball—my insecurities had begun to translate to the court and I was overanalyzing my game. If I made one mistake it weighed so heavily on my shoulders that it would work its way into my mind, joining forces with the voice whispering my height could never measure up to the world’s standards of beauty and convincing me in mighty roars that my game could never meet my coaches’ high expectations. My already shaky knees buckled under the pressure. Basketball—my passion, my pride—lost its joy.

I began mentally preparing for the season, my insecurities peaking and baffling my dedicated father as he attempted to work sports psychology on my brutally damaged psyche. We’d spend hours in the car driving to and from practice talking over the latest psychologists’ sports performance advice—but it drove me crazy. I already knew I was insecure, I already knew I put too much pressure on myself, how come they couldn’t just tell me how to shut it off?

Just as I was reaching my mental breaking point and panicking about how the season would progress without my confidence, my mom got sick. She was diagnosed with diverticulitis and rushed to the hospital the day before tryouts for emergency surgery, spiraling our dramatic family into chaos. I stood by her bedside the next morning, struck dumb at the sight of my mother--my strong, outspoken mother--lying sallow, quaking, withered in her bed. The doctor informed our family that she would need nearly a year to recover fully from the operation.

While my family probably could have functioned without mom’s help during basketball season, our busiest time of the year, with little upheaval, her recovery presented me with an escape from the insecurities of basketball that constantly exhausted my mind. I had just gotten my driver’s license, I was a pretty good cook—I could take care of my sisters. I could be the help around the house my family would need for that short while. I wouldn’t have to war with myself more than I already did. I could be free.

I didn’t show up for tryouts that day. While even now I question the decision that disappointed my coaches, left my teammates hurt and confused, and killed the hope of my college career, this choice allowed me to look my height in the eye once and for all and decide whether I could accept myself, abnormalities aside, for the tower I was. I was no longer Kate-the-Basketball-Player—who would I be now?

That fall was brutal. I avoided my coaches’ eyes, smiled weakly at my teammates as I passed them in the halls, shoved my jerseys and shoes in my abandoned gym bags and hid them under my bed. Even though I couldn’t walk past the gym without tears stinging the corners of my eyes, I began to notice little things about my life without basketball that slowly brought me to terms with myself, not Tall-Kate, not Basketball-Kate, just Kate.

The most important part of my new reality was my relationship with my family, especially my Dad. I had been secretly terrified for years that he and I had nothing in common except for our love for basketball. He was my coach, my biggest fan. He drove me countless hours to far away leagues, worked hard at my shot in the gym, enrolled me in premier basketball clinics, did his best to try to eradicate the crippling insecurities that plagued my sophomore year. I doubted we had common ground aside from my sport, and wondered what we would talk about now that I had given it up.

A lot, it turned out. The similarities between my dad and me run far deeper than our shared sport and tall stature, encompassing the way we see the world, interact with the rest of our family, joke about anything in strange voices, giggle through junior high choir concerts. The relationship we had built during those years made a surprisingly easy transition off the court, and watching his pride in me continue to grow without my basketball game gave me the confidence I needed to love myself without performance.

I became yearbook editor. I made a wonderful group of friends who had never touched a basketball in their entire life. I camped, I worked, I laughed, I grew. I graduated from high school and came to Wheaton College, where I finally realized I was proud of my height again.

The first week on campus was a shock. Tall people. Everywhere. I was ambushed from behind in SAGA one morning turning around in fright to find myself clutched in the arms of the tallest girl I’ve ever seen, a bright red shock of hair streaming around her shoulders.

“Oh, my gosh, I am so, so happy to see another tall girl here, I can’t even tell you, we have to be friends. I’m Jess. What’s your name,” she demanded. I laughed and hugged her back, surprised to be the shorter one in the embrace.

Jess wasn’t the only tall girl I met at Wheaton. My best friends and called themselves The Tall Squad, walking proudly around a campus that doesn’t bat an eye when five girls over 5’10” enter a building.

As I’ve met people who value me for my sense of humor, my ability to listen, my love for others, I’ve slowly begun to value myself for Kate, no label. I never had to change my identity after I quit basketball; I instead chose to abandon labels altogether. As I slowly, and sometimes painfully, began to think of myself apart from my height, apart from my athletic ability, apart from the labels my classmates had slapped across my back all through elementary and middle school, I began to shrug them off. I've realized there is more to me to be proud of than athletic ability, including, to my surprise, my height.

People’s surprised comments still pepper our conversations, but I’m not as snarky about them anymore. My height has been an inseparable aspect of my identity since birth, and as I finally began to accept it alongside the help of others who love me for Kate, height and all, I ended a battle that had left my teenage-self insecure and self-loathing. Gradually, as I finally allowed myself to grow into my height, my shoulders squared. Quietly, my chin rose. My back straightened, and my head, weary from years of hanging, held high.