My weight during that time hovered between 126 pounds (after a stint studying abroad in India) and 145 pounds (after a longer stint of drinking beer). In college I topped out at my current height of 5’9”. In high school I grew, but only in direct proportion to my petiteness, which is to say, not much. It’s the kind of party trick that one should never actually employ at a party, unless pity is the goal.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been able to wrap the thumb and middle finger of one hand around my other wrist, and have enough room left over for a friend to slide three fingers into the gap. My wrists are alarmingly thin, sticklike in a way that suggests malnourishment rather than run-of-the-mill scrawniness. This was the ’90s, so my billowing clothing was on trend, but my skinny wrists were definitely not. Mediums and larges that billowed and ballooned over my small frame. So as I hit my first growth spurts I ambitiously bought clothing that I assumed I would grow into. I always held up hope that I was still, literally, on the rise. My dad is a robust 5’11”, and it seemed perfectly reasonable that I’d eclipse him someday.
What did she know? From her perspective I kept getting bigger and bigger. My mom tried to comfort me by assuring me I’d grow up to be tall. But “little runt” was much harder to swallow. But I had seen a flash of bubble script, and after much pleading and prying, I got the book from him, flipped to my name, and saw the only words someone had cared to offer: “Annoying little runt.” The “annoying” didn’t bother me so much it was something I could control, and, as a middle school boy, being annoying was almost a point of pride. My buddy Ben, in a remarkably aware moment for a middle schooler, promptly snapped the book shut, claiming that the page was empty.
#SMEDIUM MEANING FULL#
We flipped to the pages of my friends first, which were full of fawning praise - “So cute!”, “So funny!” - and then finally to mine. A couple friends and I had gotten our hands on the black book the girls had been passing around the hallways, which listed every boy in our grade, and, in colorful, anonymous bubble script that foreshadowed the future cruelty of the internet message board, opinions about each boy. The most crushing moment of my middle school experience, a time when crushing moments seem to queue restlessly, occurred in health class.
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