Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

The Tall and Short of Things…

jacquelineobyikocha

Shortness is something that I don’t experience in most things except being short of funds and short of time. I am hardly ever short of thoughts, ideas and things to say.
I can’t quite recollect when I became physically conscious as a child that I’m not short. At 5 ft 11 inches tall, I remember my growing up years of gangly arms and long legs and standing a head above my peers.

The height invited teasing and taunting from male peers who for some shortness of genes didn’t get to grow tall fast enough. For a while, I recall praying not to grow too tall and hunching to appear shorter to blend in with others and not get teased as such. My mother and grandma used to straighten out my shoulders and reminded me often to stand tall and look the person in the eye.

Eventually, I grew into the arms and legs and became comfortable with my height especially when I got invitations to model clothes and calendar pages.
Fast forward to my present day, the roundness of motherhood and age has made me shorter especially in the presence of my young 14-year-old son who’s 6 ft 4 inches and growing and his siblings who are fast catching up.

I am no longer bothered about my height since that was long settled, I am more concerned with the plumper parts that jiggle and wobble these days.

I am fighting the gravitational force of nature to keep the jiggle-wobble on a short leash. I guess nature will take its course eventually though we must do our best in a healthy manner to help it along and prolong the shortness of things. I guess I’ve got that figured out if only I can get a handle on my shortage of funds and time.

P.S. I couldn’t resist adding this throwback photo of mine that my husband dug up from God knows where.

Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

SoCS – Short 

Tall, Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha, My photos

Published by jacquelineobyikocha

A wordsmith with a vivid imagination, an eager mind and a burning desire to carve out tales. As I journey with my muse to that land of all possibilities and self discovery, I hope my personal evolution will serve as a beacon of inspiration for anyone who chooses to stop by.

30 thoughts on “The Tall and Short of Things…”

  1. Jackie,
    You are beautiful. I never knew that you were a model and no surprise with such beauty. Can you try modeling now too- living in the Middle East ? Have you searched for such avenues ?
    I am tall too, though I didn’t quite get to 5.11. My problem was getting clothes my size and in a family of not too tall people, I always stood out. I was an aberration. Like you, my mother told me to always stand straight but my one worry growing up was that I was never given heels to wear. Now that I can do it on my own, I indulge to my heart’s content. In a country where many women are tall, I don’t stand out at all. And being tall gives you an edge over others, I feel.
    Susie

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    1. Your compliment makes me smile 🙂 I’ve only been able to get one modelling gig since we moved here because they tend to prefer the Arab/Asian looks in this part and blacks are far and few between. Secondly, I don’t have money to pay some agencies that want money from interested parties before they can scout for any jobs. I just do it for fun and part time when anything comes up. Growing up tall was quite a challenge with trying to find the right clothes especially when we didn’t have so many choices back then. Now, it does have it’s advantages – the edge thing and I am happy with it 😉

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  3. Beautiful words and beautiful young you , and beautiful you today. I love how you say you grew into your legs etc… that is such a great expression. We do grow into ourselves physicall and emotionally – does that make sense? Nice piece. Love bella

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  7. Jacqueline this is ‘Tall and Tall of Things’.
    And
    It is always ” Short and Short of Things” the money and time.
    I never thought you to be of such height as walking on this earth. But your stature is much heighter.
    Shiva

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  10. This quickly brought me back to my childhood. When you talked of hunching over to fit in. I wasn’t overly tall, but can remember trying to look different than I did in order to blend in. I think most of us did…whether it was our hair, our weight, our breasts, our makeup, our clothing…so much pressure during what should be our carefree years!

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  11. J you are such a beauty!!! 🙂
    I am one of the shorter people at 5ft 5 inches and I was uncomfortable with my height too for a while. But eventually I found confidence in my thoughts and knowledge 🙂

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    1. You are such a sweetie Aishwarya. Thank you my dear friend, for your kind words. It’s amazing how we present ourselves with reasons to feel dissatisfied with who we are and how we look like especially when we are young. I am glad that maturity helps us outgrow such nonsense and to find confidence in ourselves 🙂

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  12. I can relate with the first lines of this post😂. You just know how to keep a reader interested dear. I’m glad you accepted who you are as time went on. That’s boldness. Thank you for sharing this, I did learn one thing

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I love it when you decorate my heart with your words..