Member-only story
Reprogramming Myself Series
My Nickname was Amazon Woman…
Missed my chance to live into that one, sadly.
I was the tall one…you know, the child whose older brother hated her, the one whose friend’s parents wish their children were as tall as, the one who should have been able to play basketball…but couldn’t. I was the one who couldn’t play anything that had a ball involved, outside playing PIG.
I was taller than my parents at age 13. I had just had a seven-inch growth spurt, accompanied by an almost 15-pound weight gain. My bones had ached for an entire year, my shins especially. I felt like I had been starving that whole year. I think I spent half of the year, walking around with a jar of peanut butter in my left hand and a spoon in my right. The pain in my legs and my back were unbearable at times. And yet, I survived, just like every other teenage boy…except I wasn’t a boy.
I arrived at the high school as a freshman, after that growth-spurt year. I was greeted by upper-classmen as if I were a transfer student. None of them knew me, so they thought. I remember three instances where I had been approached by friends of my older brother, not knowing who I was. It was rather flattering to be asked out by older guys, of course. But once they realized that I was (1), a freshman, and (2), their friend’s…
