“Life’s too short.  I’m not!”
—Kristin Chenoweth
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been one of the “short ones.”  I was short in elementary school, I was short in middle school, and I remain short to this day.  That being said, I had never had a problem concerning my height until I entered middle school—the start of dreaded adolescence—and observed the sudden growth spurts of all of my fellow peers.  On the first day of school in sixth grade, I noticed that several of my classmates, mostly female, had grown quite a few inches.  At first I was puzzled; then I learned about puberty.  Figuring that I was a late bloomer, I ignored the issue of height altogether for the rest of the school year. 
Fast forward to the first day of seventh grade, and I was feeling like I’d missed a memo of some sort.  Even more of my classmates had experienced growth spurts.  All of my best friends had grown over the summer, and the friends that had always been the same height as me were suddenly significantly taller than me, which was hardly comforting.  I started to suspect that someone was sneaking caffeine into the herbal caffeine-free chamomile tea I drank every morning.  Anyway, as anyone familiar with the area knows, seventh grade in Tenafly, my town, is no joke—this is the year in which bar and bat mitzvahs take place every weekend.  Generally, bar and bat mitzvahs are split up into two parts: the service, which includes the reading of the Torah; and the party, which consists of mainly two things, eating and dancing.  It’s not hard to guess which part attracted more guests. 
I took these bar and bat mitzvahs as opportunities to remedy my ailment.  I insisted on wearing high heels to every mitzvah that I attended, and I grew more daring as each weekend passed.  On the weekend of one of my best friend’s bat mitzvah, my mom presented me with the boldest heels I had ever laid my eyes upon.  These shoes were colored nude, intricately designed, and complete with slender five-inch heels.  I immediately accepted the challenge.  Later that day, at my best friend’s service, people were throwing me compliments left and right on my daring shoe choice.  I embraced those compliments and added a swagger to my walk.  And an hour after the service ended, swaggering out of the temple in my five-inch heels, I tripped onto the concrete, scraping my hands, my knees, and my pride.  Oh well.  
Not surprisingly, after that experience, I lost the desire to attempt wearing outrageously tall heels.  For a while, I still was self-conscious about my height, but over the course of eighth grade I stopped caring so much about it—I reasoned that there were much more important things to worry about than trivial matters such as height.  I remember on the eighth grade trip to Hershey Park at the end of the year, my friends and I all rushed over to the candy charts that measured our heights.  All of my friends were jolly ranchers (over five feet).  I was the only twizzler (four-and-a-half feet to five feet).  “Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes at my friends, “jolly ranchers are the inferior candy anyway.”  (Jolly ranchers happened to be my favorite candy of all time, but I was trying to prove a point).
It’s taken a while, but I’ve come to accept my shortness, and accept it with pride and dignity.  Yes, being short is often times a disadvantage, especially at general admission concerts, but in the end, does it really matter?  It’s better than being abnormally tall, at any rate.