My height has not been in my favor for the past 3 years of my life.  I am about to reach 15 years of age and I still look like shouldn't be in high school.  There have been times in my life where my appearance has questioned the people around me.  It has gotten to the point where it has been uncountable for the amount of times I have been mistaken for my age in public.  It was earlier this summer.  I had gone with my brother, mom, and dad to Discovery Middle School to attend an open house to meet the teachers for my brother.  Personally, I didn’t want to go for two reasons.  One of which being that I was missing out on playing the game with my friends and trying to soak up the last bit of summer that I had.  The other reason being that I knew… I knew I would be mistaken as a middle schooler when we walk in even though half of these teachers know me.  

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We walk in and I begin to remember the old memories in this school that I had the previous year.  Immediately people started walking up to us.  

 

“Welcome to Discovery!  We hope you have a wonderful year here!”  

 

Their enthusiasm annoyed me.  I wasn’t sure if they were talking to me specifically, but I had the feeling that they were.  So I just looked at them and gave a short, but fake smile.  We walk around to my brother's classes and meet his teachers.  The entire time I was identifying 8th graders that used to be 7th graders and 7th graders that used to be 6th graders in the hallways and classes.  Some even said hi to me.  After a while we reached my brother's English teacher.  After the teacher, my parents, and my brother chatted it up (I’ve been completely silent), the teacher looked dead into my soul.  When her mouth opened, I already knew what was going to come out.

 

“What grade is he in?”  Just as I suspected.

 

“He’s going into the 9th grade this year,” my parents reply.

 

“Wow!  He looks so young, I thought he was in middle school.”

 

People tell me that looking young is a good thing as it will pay off when I’m older.  I believe them, but how does that help me now?  I had an upperclassmen ask me if I was in the 3rd grade on the first day of school this year.  I don’t think that is “a good thing”.  My height doesn’t help my case either.  When I first walked into high school for the first time, I finally realized how short I was.  Everyone’s head’s were towering over me.

 

After the teacher said this, everyone had their little laugh.  I looked over at my dad and he looked over at me.  He knew how I was just by looking at my eyes.  It was like we had an entire conversation.
 

“You hated that didn’t you.”

 

“Of course I did!  There was no reason to even mention me AT ALL!”

 

“Dude it’s fine.  You’ll grow eventually.”

 

“You said that 11 months ago!”

 

“Everyone grows at their own pace.”

 

“I didn’t even want to come here!”

 

“To be honest, I didn’t want to either.  You wanna dip out?”

 

“Yes please.”

 

We had left and that was that.  Now there have been some cases where my height and appearance have worked out for me in my favor.  I went on a dramatic rant about my height for an audition that eventually got me into Advanced Theatre in middle school.  And any time my family goes out to eat, I know that I can convince the servers that I am younger just so we don’t have to pay as much for me.  My parents even encouraged me to do that sometimes.  

 

Who knows, maybe 15 years old will treat me differently as far as my growth in appearance and aging.  And if not, then that's just another year for me being able to get free cookies any time I go to Publix.