Day 9: Legs (or lack there of)

For those of you who don't know me personally, you may not have recognized that I am really short.  Us short people prefer the term petite, but it really amounts to the same thing... our heads are closer to our feet, we look up at most people just to attempt eye contact, it usually rains on us last, and sometimes we wish we had longer legs.

It seems like long legs are so admired.  Lots of guys really think long legs are the epitome of a beautiful feminine feature, and by and large I agree.  Long legs are lovely!  Women do a whole lot of things to make their legs look longer... wearing high heels is the most obvious, but it extends beyond that when we decide whether to wear skinny jeans or boot cut, mid length or maxi dresses.  Ballerinas wear toe shoes to make their beautiful, mile long legs appear even longer to enhance the beauty of the dances they perform.  Some shorter women actually have tried to adopt this technique, and have a habit of standing on their tiptoes on a frequent basis.  I know I do, and I wish I could say it is simply for keeping my calves in shapely condition.

Since I have gone much more "barefoot" style in my footwear choices, I have noticed something about myself, and about other people as well.  One, once I got used to my feet being flat on the ground, I realized the benefit of having strong feet and legs far outstrips my concern for how my height is perceived by other people.  Maybe people are just being tactful (though I have never known the population in general to be a particularly tactful group), but people really have not commented on my height any more than they have in the past, despite the fact that the crown of my head is, in fact, closer to the ground on a more regular basis.

I also realized that I care less and less about what people think or say about my height.  It used to drive me crazy to hear people say, "Oh my gosh, look at you!  You are so cute!", or better yet, "Did you know, you are really short."  I have gotten my digs in over the years, and have some excellent retorts, albeit as unflattering for the recipient as their comment seemed to me.  But I have come to embrace cuteness as a fact of life, and really, it isn't half bad to be cute.  I may never be viewed as gorgeous or glamorous, and I have no delusions that I am actually going to get any taller, regardless of how much Tai Chi I practice.  But I am learning to appreciate cute.  I mean, curvaceous and dead sexy may yet even be within my reach.

I figure I can view my petite stature in a different way.  Some people in this world were given long, sexy legs.  Some people don't have legs at all.  I can either embrace jealousy and grumble about being short, or I can be appreciative that I have decent, working legs and nice calves that shockingly lack any resemblance to cankles, and be happy with who I am and the way I look, any time, anywhere, while standing next to whomever I happen to be standing next to, regardless of how far I have to look up to have an effective conversation.

To all the shorties out there, LOVE your legs, ACCEPT the fact that your hips and ribs will never be any reasonable distance apart, and EMBRACE your cuteness, even if it means shopping for t-shirts in the kids section, because guess what, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can pull off cute the way a short woman can.  And trust me, the words dead sexy still apply!

<3  Dani