I am strong

In last week's post I talked about how I don't want to be strong. That's not how the world sees me, though. I act confident, and I'm loud, and that's what they see. I'm very good at forgetting how people perceive me.

I am AFAB (assigned female at birth) and half an inch shy of six feet tall. I have been this height since I was about twelve years old. As an early teenager, I was asked if I was 18. I take up space. A lot of my existence is spent figuring out ways in which to take up less space, especially on public transit.

My voice carries. I am fairly frequently shushed by peers. I've been told that my laugh can be heard at the other end of a hallway. This isn't seen as a positive thing.

I look like I know what I'm doing. I've gotten good at not making (as many) faces when I mess up while I'm playing the cello. I'm a relatively high achiever, even while I struggle with mental illness, even as I lose the ability to cry after someone I was in love with leaves, even though I have to set at least three alarms to make sure I get up in the morning.

People who meet me online think I'm much shorter than I am. I've lost track of the number of times someone has guessed my height as 5'5" or shorter, only to be incredulous when I tell them that I'm six, seven, eight inches taller than they thought. I still haven't received a satisfactory answer as to why they think I'm short. I've given up asking for the time being.

People who know me online know that school is a struggle for me, motivating myself doesn't happen very often, I'm bad at managing my anxiety, I often fall into self-hate spirals. This isn't the kind of thing I can tell someone face to face. They'd be too overwhelmed, unable to process it. They'd leave. So I don't mention any of this to the people I interact with on a daily or semi-daily basis, and the veneer of control remains firmly in place over my wildly incoherent existence.

[I'm currently procrastinating homework by writing this, and my brain is having a hard time figuring out where I'm going with this piece. I promise I have a point, I'm just not sure how to express it.]

I look at myself in the mirror, and I listen to myself talk, and I look at pictures of myself, and I watch videos of myself, and I don't like any of it. I would much rather be small, so that my friends would see more easily that I need comforting. I would much rather be quiet, so that people would need to bend closer to me to hear my words. I would much rather be visibly anxious, so that my mental illnesses would have a better chance of being recognized and validated.

But I'm not. I'm big, and loud, and collected. I can't change that.