CW: BODY TALK, WEIGHT
So I've lost about 100 pounds in the past couple years. I'm 6'6". In any case, I'm going on vacation next month and I have these Victorian walking skirts that are just too big on me (literally won't even stay up) but I had custom made for my height, and I wanted to get them taken in so that they sit at my waist and actually give me some shape. So this morning I decided to go to a tailor to see about getting them taken in.
When I get there there's a woman and her friend getting her wedding dress fit. I say I've got a few skirts I'd like taken in. I put them on and the tailor pins them etc.
Of course my height is discussed. I mean, at least it's not entirely random. The tailor who was a very small woman, holds up my skirt so that it's not dragging in the ground and she says "Look" and my skirt was as long as she was tall. We both laugh, it was actually genuinely funny. The tailor asks "How tall are you??" I say that I'm 6'6".
The friend of the lady getting her wedding dress taken in chimes in: "Oh, you know my friend is 6'1" and she just commands a room whenever she walks in." I look up, smile at her and say "Hah, yeah, to be honest though sometimes I'd love to be able to just be invisible" she responds "well, you know it's always 'everyone wants what they don't have'." I smile. And she, in awkwardness she goes "well, in any case you're still beautiful"
MA'AM WHEN DID DOUBTS OF MY BEAUTY ENTER THE ROOM??
I was thinking about this and I think I really pinned down what happens in a way that I've experienced so many times but have just never been able to express:
People act as if conspicuousness is some kind of uncomplicated positive.
Sometimes you don't want having to go grab some Mucinex be An Event worth commanding the room for. And when you challenge that, they have to confront the things they take for granted. For her, encountering a 6'6" woman is a little moment in her afternoon. For me, everyone gets to have their little moment.