Now, I don't want to alarm anyone, but I've recently made a discovery about myself that I need to share with you all.

I'm short.

I suppose in a way, I've always suspected I was short, but I was never really certain that was the case. I thought for awhile in high school that I was short, but I figured it was just a phase I was going through. A lot of people were experimenting with their height, so no one really noticed mine.

In university and beyond, it was more of the same story; short people, tall people, people who couldn’t make up their mind and were just ‘average’ – all over the place.

But yesterday at work, I was standing next to one of my coworkers, wearing my work shoes with their heels, and I realized that she was short. She complained that she was never going to wear flats again, and I told her that today I would wear my flattest shoes.

So today when I came in to work, I took off my boots with their big heels, and I put on my cheap canvas shoes with no heels, no cushioning, no padding. I was embracing my true identity as a short person.

Suddenly, my pants fit differently, and I have a different perspective on my coworkers. Just now, returning from lunch, I was standing next to two of them: a guy who stands a fair height, and a girl who’s taller than me to begin with, and also was wearing heels. And I felt short, and I felt good.

My name is Jen, and I’m short. And damn proud of it.

On another note, why is it that whenever I’m shopping, the sales clerks like to give me tips on dressing that invariably include the line, “and this cut/colour combination/style will lengthen you/make you look taller.” Okay, I can understand the “lengthen you” comment that translates to, “won’t make you look stumpy/dumpy/whatever” and that’s not a style of my body I’m trying to play up, but at the same time, I’m not trying to look taller. I wear heels sometimes because I like the way they look, but it’s not because I have a problem with being 5’2” and I’m trying to hide that. I don’t want to look squat, but I don’t care about trying to look tall. I’d rather just wear something that flatters me.

Which explains why I wear so many shapeless tops, especially in the winter. Man it’s tough to look attractive when you have to wear forty layers because you’re always freezing.